


don't wanna rush

by laratoncita



Series: To Live & Die in LA [3]
Category: On My Block (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Behavior, Declarations Of Love, Domestic Violence, Drug Dealing, Drug Use, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Gangs, Harm to Children, High School, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Pre-Canon, Slice of Life, Underage Drinking, Underage Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2020-10-24 11:42:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 24,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20705429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laratoncita/pseuds/laratoncita
Summary: and say that this is love.Here's the thing: Oscar's a sucker from the get-go.





	1. nada hay más que nosotros

**Author's Note:**

> anna and i got emotional discussing how young claudia and oscar were when they started dating lmfao heres however many words of me being emo :( title from feel it too by tainy et al.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from rosario castellanos' "poesía no eres"

Claudia jumps when she sees him. Oscar tries to grin but it feels like a grimace, but then she glances at him from under her eyelashes like she’s trying to be slick and it turns into a real grin.

“Hey,” he says, leaning real heavy on the locker next to hers. Tries not to preen when she smiles, just a little. She looks good, in light-colored pants and a collared tee. He tries not to remember what she looked like in the backseat of his car the day before. Now’s not the time to reminisce. “You busy?”

“School just let out,” she says, mouth curving upwards.

“Pues,” he says, and loses his train of thought when she smiles for real, “uh.”

She bites her lip. “Qué querés?”

There are a lot of ways he can answer that question. Shit she might smack him over. Mostly he wants to have her close, again. Sitting next to him in the car, maybe, or just walking around Freeridge like they do, sometimes, when she’s trying to avoid home and he doesn’t have Santos business. Except maybe she’ll let him hold her hand, or kiss her again, or tuck her under his arm. He thinks she’ll fit there perfectly, wants a chance to prove himself right.

He clears his throat, says, “You need a ride home?” and she tilts her head.

“Yeah,” she says, “I do.”

He nods. Says, “I can drive you.”

“I figured,” she says, slowly, “be kinda shitty for you to ask and then just dip.”

He laughs a little. Rubs the back of his neck, straightening when she closes her locker. He doesn’t bother stopping at his all that often, doesn’t get called on in class as is. Sometimes a teacher will try to catch him off guard but he’s smart enough to get it right, usually. That won’t be too much of a problem, anymore, though.

“Thought you were done with this,” she says as they walk towards his car.

He’s trying to figure out how to hold her hand. If she’d like that, or just let him. “Whatchu mean?”

“Ayer…” she starts, falls quiet. Looks at him curiously when he opens the car door for her, like he hasn’t been doing that since he got it over the summer. “You said you were dropping out.”

“Yeah.”

“So why you here?”

“Had to pick up the paperwork,” he says, shrugging, and shuts the door for her after she climbs in. Says, once he’s in the driver’s seat, “I’ll be around ‘til that shit’s gone through, I guess.”

“Hm,” she says, and tucks some hair behind her ear.

She lives closer to the school than he does, and them talking the whole time makes the ride seem even shorter. He pulls up a few houses down, like he usually does. He might not have tats like most of the older Santos, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t look a little bit like one. Most of them keep their hair shorter, sure, a zero or a one, but he rocks the pulled up socks, the Dickies. It’s hard to look at him and not know what he’s up to.

Claudia doesn’t even move to unbuckle. Sucks on her lips, just a little, like she’s trying to figure out what to say. Oscar watches her like it’s the last time he’ll ever see her; can’t help himself.

He says, “You getting out?”

“Ugh,” she says, and smiles at him. Genuine. “You busy today?”

“Nah,” he says. Hands still on the steering wheel no matter how bad he wants to reach out. “You tryna kick it?”

“Yeah,” she says, “’s Friday, right? Might as well.”

“You acting like you be at home all week,” he says, and her gaze flits away from him. Something like embarrassment on her face.

“We both know that ain’t true,” she says, and when she looks at him he can almost pretend it’s exactly how he looks at her. Imagines she’s thinking of the two of them together today, and the day before, and all the times they’ve hung out, shooting the shit whether it was just them two or one of her friends from school watching, confused, at their easy interactions.

Feels like he’s been wanting her forever, even if it’s not true. Two years at most. Less, probably. He was a little mocoso back then, just started running with the Santos. Met her that summer and didn’t know how to make sense of the protectiveness he felt, even if it was clear she could take care of herself just fine. Shit, he was there when she threw hands at some shorty from the block who called her a dirty Salvi. Was impressed, and that was despite having been her friend for a year by then.

Now it’s two years later and he finally knows what she looks and feels and tastes like, and he’s still feeling out of his mind just from looking at her. He doesn’t know what to think about it.

She says, leaning back in her seat as he pulls away from the curb again, “What’s the move, Diaz?”

“We’ll see,” he says, and tries not let all his feelings show on his face. He’s pretty sure they’re there, anyway.

The house is a mess when they walk in, but that’s not anything new. His mom’s apparently clean this week—something about work. She’s gone already, though, probably on her way there. Cesar’s bus won’t be there for another little while. If Claudia were just some hyna he’d put the moves on her, maybe, but as it is, he’s still not sure how yesterday happened. He’s pretty sure she was pissed with him about planning to drop out—is surprised, really, that she isn’t trying to argue with him now. Maybe because of what it all led to.

“You hungry?”

“I’m good,” she says, takes a seat at the table and puts her legs up on a chair. He knows they have at least enough food for dinner and a snack for Cesar; cuts some fruit up for the chiquillo so that it’s ready when he gets home. It’s another night of spaghetti but at least it’s edible; he tries not to think of the last time their mom tried to cook for them. “When’s Cesar get home?”

“Soon,” he says, and they stare at each other for a long minute. He says, because he can’t stand not knowing, “You mad at me?”

“For what?”

“For dropping out.”

She frowns. “No lo has hecho.”

“I’m going to.”

He watches her struggle not to roll her eyes. Finally, she says, “I think you shouldn’t.”

“I know.”

She bites the inside of her cheek, winces. Chews on her thumbnail before she speaks again. “Is your mom gonna let you?”

“Probably,” he says, and takes a seat in the chair next to her. She’s still got her feet up. Comfortable like it could be her house, too. “Probably won’t ask what she’s signing, anyway.”

“Don’t they make you test out?” she asks, “I thought that was the only way to drop out if you ain’t eighteen.”

He shrugs, “Y qué? Either way I’m done with it.”

She isn’t looking at him when she says, “Whatchu gonna be doing, then?” and he sighs.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, and then, when she gives him a dirty look, “for real. I’ll be fine.”

“No te creo,” she says, like she’s got the upper hand, and then, “you gonna do your homework this weekend?”

“Is this you telling me you wanna work on yours?”

“Pues,” she says, stretching out the vowel, and laughs when he reaches out to tug on her hair. Catches his hand in hers and then doesn’t let go, her palm warm against his. He curls his fingers over hers and she lets him, smiling just a little bit, looking right at him.

He’s just convinced himself to kiss her when the front door bursts open, Cesar calling for him immediately. He drops her hand and catches something like disappointment flit across her face before she straightens up, twists in her seat to greet Cesar, too.

“Hi, C,” she says, and Cesar lights up. Throws himself at her, like he’s forgotten he was looking for Oscar first. He’s only a little stung.

“Are you staying for dinner?” he asks her, eyes huge, excited like only a seven-year-old could be after a full day of class.

“Oh, I dunno,” she says, “we just got here.”

“You should stay,” he tells her very seriously, and then lets go of her to give Oscar his own hug. “I made you something.”

“Yeah?” Oscar says, hand in his hair. “Whatchu make?”

Cesar brandishes a drawing splattered in paint, and Oscar hopes against hope that it’s fully dry. Even the kid-friendly brands are hell to clean; their dryer doesn’t even work anymore, has him hanging their shit up out back like they’re back in the motherland or something. His ma—when she’s sober enough for it—tells him to be grateful. Tries to reminisce and shit, over those few years the two of them went back to TJ, when she still had a cousin living down there. It’s not like they stayed; his dad came groveling eventually and she went right back to him like none of the shit had ever mattered. In some ways, it still doesn’t.

To Cesar, he says, “That’s tight, C. You want it on the fridge?”

“Yeah,” he says.

“Yeah qué?”

“Please,” he says, making his eyes go round, and Oscar grins, rubs his fuzzy little head again.

“You got it,” he says, and has Cesar rearrange the other ones they’ve got up. It’s all Cesar’s stuff—Oscar went out and got magnets for them, the ones that help kids learn how to spell, as soon as he got to kindergarten. Once it’s arranged to Cesar’s liking he gets the kid his fruit, Claudia pushing herself up in her seat so that she’s not using two chairs. “School go okay?”

“Yup,” Cesar says, distracted by his food already, “we used blocks in math today.”

“Dope,” Oscar says, only a little distracted when Claudia giggles. “How’s the crew?”

“Ruby lost his tooth,” Cesar says, eyes wide again, but this time in genuine surprise. “Yesterday, he said.”

“He get money from the tooth fairy?” Claudia asks, elbow braced on the table so she can prop her head up.

“Yeah,” Cesar says, “five dollars!”

“Wow,” Claudia says, eyebrows up to humor the kid, “that’s a lot.”

“That’s how much Cesar got,” Oscar says, a little wry, and she grins at him.

She leans towards Cesar, mock-whispers, “I bet you could get ten for your next one if you leave a note,” and Cesar looks at her like it’s the best idea he’s ever heard.

Whatever look’s on his face makes her bite her lip, clearly trying not to laugh. He wants to call her out, just a little, but. He thinks it's a good look on her, too.

“You got homework, chiquillo?” he says to distract him, and Cesar turns back to him.

“No,” he says, gives Oscar an incredulous look, “it’s the weekend.”

“Shoot, my bad,” he says. Kid's a smartass, sometimes. Cracks him up. “You want me to put a movie on for you, then?”

“Yeah!” Cesar says, jumps from his seat even though he’s not finished. Little mocoso is still learning to sit still.

“Hold up, homie,” Oscar says, even as Claudia gets up from the table, reaching for the plate, “you finished?”

“I’m not hungry anymore.”

“Uh-huh,” he says, ruffling his hair, “sure. C’mon, pick a movie.”

Claudia’s washed the dishes by the time he’s done, and he frowns.

“You ain’t have to do that,” he says to her, and she shrugs, still drying her hands.

“It’s fine,” she says.

He’s not comforted, but he shrugs it off. Tilts head towards the back door. “You wanna smoke?”

She grins, says, “Yeah,” and like always, lets him open the door for her.

Out back, the fence is pretty high. Oscar doesn’t usually worry about folks calling the cops on them, anyway. Most people don’t bother in Freeridge. They sit on the back steps, closer than usual but not as close as they could be. When he passes her the blunt their fingers brush.

“You doing anything this weekend,” he asks her, exhaling slowly.

She shakes her head. Holds her breath, a little, not used to smoking even if they’ve done it together a few times. She exhales, says, “Homework.”

“Your girls busy?”

“Celi’s got a new man,” she says, and tries to wiggle her eyebrows.

Oscar laughs. “Wasn’t she dating some dude from Alameda?”

“Broke up in August,” she says, watches him carefully while he takes another hit, “this one’s from Westmont.”

“He white?”

“You think there’s white folks in Westmont? Come on,” she says. Coughs a little, on her next pass.

“Still not used to it, huh,” Oscar says, and lets their shoulders brush together. “Here I thought you was a pro.”

“Oscar,” she says, voice a little strained, “have I told you how annoying you are today?”

“Nope,” he says, smirking, and gets an idea when he takes the joint back. “Hey. C’mere.”

She tilts her head. He takes a deep toke, crooks his fingers so she comes closer. “Just breathe,” he says, trying not to exhale, and puts his hand on the back of her neck. She goes perfectly still, and he can almost hear her inhale when he puts his mouth up against hers. Smoke doesn’t taste good, not cigarettes or his mota, but this moment, their lips parted and almost touching, makes him think it almost does.

She pulls back, breathes in real deep. Keeps her eyes on his even as she exhales. “Do it again,” she says. Puts her hand over his heart when he listens. They take longer to separate. She says, “Again,” and this time, after she inhales, she doesn’t pull away. Swallows, says, “Oscar,” and kisses him like he’s wanted all afternoon.

He puts his free hand against her jaw, one of hers at his collar and the other hooked around his neck like she needs him closer. Kisses her with all he’s got, tries not to drop the blunt when she crawls into his lap.

“Hey,” he says, and when she pulls back she looks a little wild. “Uh. You wanna finish this?” and holds up the spliff like an offering.

She grins a little. Self-conscious and not all at once. “Do you?”

“I…kinda like this better.”

“Me too,” she says; smiles so sweet it’s like nothing else matters. He thinks he likes that best.


	2. mirar tu rostro

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls heed updated tags / there's some. implied csa here so pls keep that in mind when u read, it's not graphic at all but the implication is there.
> 
> title from matilda elena lopez's "estoy en paz contigo"

A few days a week, Claudia works at one of the churches in Freeridge. It’s not the one that Oscar’s mom used to take them to when they were little, the same church where the Martinez family goes. More Salvadorans at this one, run by some young new priest who’s big on actually helping out the folks who come by with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

He goes inside instead of waiting for her in the parking lot. Maybe he’s imagining things, but she looks real happy to see him. It’s been nearly two weeks since things…changed, between them. Something new and tentative about the way they look at each other, now. He’s finally done with classes, has to go do some test or whatever to make it official, but it’s as good as finished now. Claudia wasn’t too happy when he told her about the former, but she seemed placated when he told her about the certification shit. He’s still not too sure what it all means, but it’s fine. It has to be.

He’s still giving her rides home, though, regardless of the fact that he’s got no reason to linger around school property anymore. They’ll pick up Cesar or go for milkshakes or sometimes cruise, just the two of them, Cesar with the one sitter who’s willing to do Oscar the favor, on account of her man’s a Santo, too. Claudia kisses him goodbye now, sometimes hello, even in between conversations that sometimes get forgotten when they move to the backseat. He likes kissing her, afterwards, the way she touches his face, gently, like she’s trying to savor everything.

The inside of the building’s trippy, too many curves and corners where he least expects them. Claudia’s been working here since the summer, tried to use her paychecks to buy him dinner, sometimes, before they started doing whatever it is they’re doing. He’s given her rides home before, usually when he was in the area anyway. She takes the buses everywhere, alone or with Araceli or one of the other girls she hangs out with sometimes. She can handle herself fine. Oscar just doesn’t she should have to.

“What were you doing over here?” she says, taking a seat behind the old desk they have her sit at and take calls. He sits on the other side, in a worn green chair against the wall.

He shrugs. “Figured you needed a ride.”

“I could bus,” she says, rearranging the already-neat desk, papers stacked and pens organized by color. There’s a sticky note with a number scribbled down on it. Oscar tilts his head.

“You rather bus today?”

“Pues, no,” she says, smiling at him a little. “You here already, ain’t you?”

He shrugs. “I like driving you around.”

“Yeah?” she says, eyebrow quirking upwards, “we always drive around.”

“You complaining?”

“Nah,” she says, finally lets herself smile real big at him. “I like it.”

He opens his mouth. Closes it again, says, “Me too,” voice wavering just a little bit. Claudia looks at him like she might be able to read his mind, and the thought thrills and scares him all at once.

The phone starts ringing before he can embarrass himself, though. She stays smiling at him anyway, answers with her standard work-greeting, the words thick with cheer. He idly messes with the stack of pens, testing them out on a spare post-it and finding that half of them don’t work. He raises his eyebrow at her and she mouths what he thinks is _Be good_ at him. He wants to kiss her so badly it hurts.

Once she hangs up the phone he says, “None’a these work.”

“We accept donations,” she says sweetly, and he gives into the urge to lean over the desk and kiss her. She makes a surprised sound but tilts her head anyway, hand on his jaw real gentle. She looks—happy, when he pulls away. Seems like she is a lot more often, lately.

“How are your folks,” he says, because they’re usually the reason why she isn’t. She lived with an older couple for a little while, winter of freshman year until the beginning of this summer, but then the husband had a stroke and they couldn’t foster kids anymore. Her current foster parents don’t like Oscar much, seems like, stay giving him dirty looks when they catch him dropping her off. They’re better than the family she was living with the summer they started hanging out. Claudia hasn’t given him the full story, but he knows why she was at the park after midnight, back before they even started high school. If he didn’t already know she’d be pissed, he’d track all of them—her old foster parents, the brother—down and beat the shit out of them.

She shrugs. “They’re fine.” She’s still smiling at him, just a little. He figures they’re probably treating her okay.

The place doesn’t stay open that late—eight o’clock during the week, even earlier on weekends. Claudia’s usually here Saturdays and Sundays, one or two days during the week at most. The priest here seemed worried, at first, about all those hours during the school year, but Claudia’s real smart. Honors classes and shit, even with all that moving around over the last few years. Teachers used to do double-takes when they’d pass her locker and find Oscar there. He wonders if they’ve noticed he’s not there anymore.

At ten ‘til, Claudia starts locking up—puts the chain on the front door, locks the windows in the parlor. He trails after her as she shuts off the lights, watches as the shadows throw shapes against the walls and she becomes the only familiar thing in the whole building.

“You gonna help me?” she says, turning her head to grin at him, and he returns it, easy, without even thinking.

“I making any money if I do?” and she laughs.

“Dundo,” she says, real fond, “I get eight dollars an hour, what, you wanna cut?”

“Yeah,” he says, even as he reaches out to turn off the last light, over near the back door. He usually picks her up from the alley, there. Doesn’t like the idea of her walking in the dark.

They head out soon after, and he waits while she locks the door behind them. She left a single light on outside, like usual, for whoever comes in first thing in the morning. Something to see by, now and later. Afterwards, she looks up at him and says, “Thanks for coming by.”

“I wanted to see you.”

She bites her lip. Pleased. “Pues. For the ride, then.”

“You my girl,” he says, “why wouldn’t I drive you home?”

The light near them is orange-ish like it’s an old bulb. It flickers, just once. Claudia says, blinking, “I’m your girl?” and his brain—pauses. Short-circuits might be a better word, not that he’ll say so. She stays looking at him.

“Huh?”

Her eyebrows pull together. “You just said it,” she says, “but I don’t remember neither of us saying that.”

When Oscar breathes it hurts, just a little. He says, slowly, afraid that maybe he’s misread this whole situation, “I mean. I kinda figured. Since we, uh. We’re. We’ve been…”

She watches him expectantly. He can feel himself start sweating.

Thinks of how she kissed him first, and then, when he got his hands on her, said she hadn’t done _this_ before. Maybe this is just convenient for her. Maybe she doesn’t really want him all that much. His breath catches at the thought of it, of her running around with someone else. Makes something ache, ugly and painful, in his chest.

“Are you, uh,” he says, swallowing, “is there. Am I the only…”

Claudia tilts her head, eyebrows still scrunched up like she’s confused. “Are you what?” she asks.

“Are you seeing some other…” He can’t even finish the sentence. Hates the thought of someone else getting to do what they do together—the kissing her, sure, but the other things, the holding her hand when they sit at the kitchen table together, the way she knocks their shoulders together when he makes her laugh. Just the way she smiles at him.

Her expression twists into something more incredulous. “What?”

He shrugs, a little. Feels helpless, suddenly. She looks away for a second, mouth opening like she can’t figure out what she wants to say.

“You for real?” she says, finally, when she turns back to look at him. “You think I’m running around with some other dude?”

He doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t trust his voice.

Claudia exhales, laughing a little. “With what time,” she says, shaking her head, “when I’m always with you?” She goes to bite at her nails, stops herself. Says, looking at him from the corner of her eye, “You can just ask me to be your girlfriend, sabés,” and just like that, he can breathe easy again.

“You wanna be my girl?”

She rolls her eyes but can’t keep from grinning. “Yeah, duh,” she says, smoothing her hair back even if it’s not out of place, pulled pack into a low ponytail, “what I just say? I wouldn’t just…I mean. What’ve we been doing, huh?”

“Having sex,” he says, and she smacks the back of her hand against his chest, mouth puckered like she’s trying not to grin.

“Okay, yeah, but,” she says, eyes bouncing from him off to the side, like she can’t look straight at him. He takes a step closer, notices how she seems to strain closer, watches her bite her lip. “Oscar,” she says, warningly, but puts her hands on his chest when he settles his own at her waist. “That’s not all we do.”

“I like the other stuff, too,” he tells her, and she smiles so sweet it soothes every other ache away. “This makes us official, right?” he says, “I don’t gotta worry about no dudes tryna claim you as their girl?”

“Don’t be calling me your ruca,” she tells him, laughs when he ducks his head kiss to her face, “I know how you and your cholos be gossiping.”

“We don’t gossip,” he says, distracted by the smell of her perfume—vanilla, warm, soothing like Claudia.

“Son chismosos,” she says, and he pulls back to look at her, more serious.

“I wanna be with you,” he says, honest like he can’t remember ever being, and her gaze softens.

“Okay,” she says, “so. Let’s be together.”

Oscar nods. Says, “Dope,” for lack of anything else to say, and when she giggles he can’t help but kiss her again, the both of them smiling too wide for it really count.


	3. esa invisible voz

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> implied / referenced csa again and also racist commentary re: salvadorans, AGAIN i do not agree w this :(
> 
> title from matilda elena lopez's "estoy en paz contigo"

He picks Claudia up from school the Thursday after Cuchillos tats him up. She’s grinning until he turns his head towards her fully, and he watches with something like unease as the smile drops off her face, mouth parted a little like she can’t make sense of it. She seems to pause, the slightest bit, before opening the passenger side door, bag dropped to her feet once she’s climbed in.

“Hey,” she says, not half as excited as she seemed the last time he picked her up, and he returns the greeting with about as much enthusiasm.

He pulls out of the parking lot, drives towards his place instead of hers even as he asks her, “You heading home?” and she answers no.

He knows she had a test in history, today, but asking about it seems unimportant. She’s fiddling with the radio, settles on some R&B song he’s heard in passing. She bites at her nails, after, and he reaches out to take her hand without really thinking about it. She keeps saying she’s trying to stop doing that. Her hands are a little dry, soft against his. Lately they seem to reach for one another without really thinking about it. He likes it a lot.

She inhales, careful, and laces her fingers with his. Says, “When’d you get it?”

“Tuesday,” he says. It shouldn’t take too long to heal, Cuchillos said. Keep it moisturized. Let it breathe. His cheekbone is smeared with Aquaphor as is.

“It hurt?”

“Not really,” he says. “’S real little.”

“Yeah,” she says. When he glances at her she’s staring at their joined hands. Rubs her thumb against the back of his, just a little. He feels choked up, suddenly. Like his lungs aren’t working when he looks at her. Something about her expression, the way her eyebrows are pulled together, mouth set into a frown. He wants to reach out and smooth it all away, but he’s the reason she looks like that today. He doesn’t like the feeling.

He says, instead of anything else, “How’d your test go?”

She quirks a grin at him. Amused even when he’s full of shit. “Fine. Wasn’t too bad.”

“Cool,” he says, and her smile almost reaches her eyes.

When they walk into the house Oscar tries not to swear—catches sight of his mother’s thin form before she can see them. Takes a step forward like he can block her from seeing Claudia. He’d be expecting too much, though.

“Your room?” Claudia asks, voice low, and he shrugs, says, _Yeah_, even as his ma turns to look at them. She looks clear-eyed for once, eyebrows up high when she notices it’s not just Oscar in the doorway. Her recognizing him shouldn’t feel this surprising, but last they had a real conversation it was only real on one end—she kept calling him Cisco. Just thinking about it makes him sick.

“Niño,” his ma says, voice reedy, “qué tienes en la cara?”

Jesus. “Nothing,” he says, even as he takes a step towards the bedrooms, away from where she lingers in the kitchen. They don’t have lights in the living room, right now—bulbs are out. “Why ain’t you at work?”

“I don’t work every day,” she says, words syrupy slow even without the drugs, “y esta niña?”

“You know her,” he lies. They’ve definitely only interacted in passing, Claudia on her way out the house before Penelope could get a good look at her. He knows how this is going to go before she even opens her mouth, not that it stops her from doing it, anyway.

“You bringing hoodrats around here, huh,” she says. Claudia, standing close behind him, curls her fingers at the hem of his shirt. He reaches back to hold her hand, squeezes when she clutches at him. “Where you from, eh? You too dark to be Mexican.”

“Ma,” he says, sharp. Her face twists up.

“Don’t talk to me like that,” she says, taking a step closer. “I don’t want no fucking Salvis in my house, you hear? Buncha mugrosos running ‘round with the Santos, now—”

“C’mon,” he says, ignoring her even as her voice gets louder. Tugs Claudia in front of him, just a little bit, as they move, gets her to his room and locks the door without really thinking. “Jesus fucking—”

“I was worried she might like me,” Claudia says, dully, dropping her bag on the floor and then herself afterwards. Crosses her legs, leans back against the bed just a little—a shitty twin, sheets raggedy even if they’re clean. “Where’s she working at, anyway?”

“I’m sorry,” he says, taking a seat next to her. They can hear his mom banging shit around in the kitchen, probably still muttering to herself about the Santos and Salvadorans and how everything’s gone to shit. That part is true, at least. “I didn’t know she was gonna be home.”

“It’s fine,” she says, even if he can tell from the set of her mouth that it’s not. She smacked the last girl who called her Salvi to her face. He remembers that. She could probably take his mom, but. Well. He takes her hand again instead. She takes a breath. “What’s it mean, huh?”

“What?”

She motions to her face. “The tear.”

He stares.

She rolls her eyes, a little. “I mean—” she pauses, bites her lip. “For you, okay? What’s it mean that you’re tatted up now?”

“It’s just one.”

“It’s on your face,” she says, flat. “Everyone knows what _that_ means.”

“What, you worried about me?” he says, tries to grin at her, their shoulders pressed together. It doesn’t work; she stays frowning. “Claudis.”

“I know what you do,” she says, and she sounds too serious. “I been knowing.”

He takes a deep breath. “Why you bringing it up, then?”

“You have it on your _face_, now,” she says. “What, you think they gonna let you take me to dances looking like that?”

He blinks at her, “You wanna go to dances?”

“No,” she says, “that’s not—don’t look at me like that, ya,” and he tries to smooth his expression. Guess he hadn’t thought of the two of them getting dressed up, slow dancing in the school gym. He feels a twinge in his chest at the thought. “I just. It’s bien serious, no?”

“It’s always been serious,” he says. Listens closely and can’t hear his mom anymore. Wonders what she’d do if she tried to open the door and found it locked.

“I know,” she says, “just seems different, ‘s all. With the tat.”

“I’m a Santo,” he tells her, “I always was.”

“No, you wasn’t,” she says, eyebrows pulled together, “not when we met.”

“Which time?”

“Ya sabés,” she says, “don’t start. Please.”

He looks at their joined hands. “You surprised?”

“No,” she says, looking at him, and his breath catches, “I just. Wasn’t expecting it, I guess. Not so soon.”

He raises an eyebrow. Tries to front like he doesn’t know any better. “You wanna know who it was?”

Her jaw clenches. There’s no way she hasn’t heard the rumors, and even then, Claudia can see right through him like no one else. Oscar wants her to ask as much as he wishes she’d pretend she didn’t know. _He_ wishes she didn’t know. “No,” she says. “I don’t care.”

“You sure?” he says. Feels a little mean just saying it.

“Yeah,” she says, and lets go of his hand. Reaches for her bag, grabs her water bottle and takes a long drink. Offers him some, afterwards. Lets the subject drop like she’s tired of it already, too. “Your mom gonna start shit when I leave?”

“Probably,” he says. “She probably thinks we’re fucking.”

“Ugh,” she says, nose wrinkling, “don’t say that.”

“Say what? Fucking?”

“Oscar.”

“We’ve—”

“Ya!” She purses her mouth. Looks embarrassed and pleased all at once. “I don’t want nobody _thinking_ that. I’m not some hoodrat.”

“Nah,” he says, “you my girl, remember?”

“No me dejés olvidar,” she says, curls her fingers over his when he moves his hand to her thigh. “Your mom’s home, por Dios.”

“C’mon,” he says, “it won’t take too long,” and reaches for her face, doesn’t notice the way she goes stiff, suddenly. Just wants to give her a kiss.

She flinches soon enough, though, says, “_Don’t_,” and Oscar freezes, hands up like there’s a gun pointed at him. She wraps her arms around herself. “Don’t say that.”

“Sorry,” he says, not sure of what’s happening, “uh. What—”

“Él me decía eso,” she says, face ashen, “when he’d—you know.”

“Shit,” he says, wanting to reach out to her again but thinking it might just make it worse. “I’m sorry, Claudis, that’s not what I—I’m sorry.” He feels sick. Wants to shake himself or maybe someone else.

Claudia takes another deep breath, swallows. Hands at her elbows like she’s got to hold herself or else she’ll fall apart. Oscar’s caught somewhere between hurt and anger and guilt. Didn’t realize he could say shit that could hurt her like that—and on accident, worst of all. So fast he can only just make sense of it. She shakes her head.

“You didn’t know,” she says, and lets go of herself. Rubs her knuckle against her cheekbone, looks at him from the corner of her eye. “Sorry. You can touch me, it’s—I’m fine.”

“I…” He’s never felt so helpless in his life. “Can. Do you wanna hug?”

When she smiles it looks genuine. “Yeah,” she says, and when he reaches for her this time she reciprocates, crawls into his lap and lets him just hold her. She really does seem to fit against him perfectly, doesn’t matter if they’re like this or just walking side by side. Like the universe was thinking of him when it thought her up.

“You okay?” he says into her hair. She smells like vanilla, like she always does. She’s warm in his arms—makes him want to crawl into bed with her, but just to sleep, maybe. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get enough of being around her.

“Yeah,” she says, voice muffled. “Sorry.”

“Why you sorry?”

“I never think about it,” she says quietly, “’s just sometimes…it’s like it’ll never go away.”

He clutches at her, just a little bit. Doesn’t know how to fix this. Doesn’t think he’s even allowed. She presses her head to his collarbone, pulls back to look at him. Puts her fingers on his jaw, tilts his head back. He lets her move him how she wants. Knows he's a decent enough distraction, sometimes.

She inhales, long and slow. Maybe it’s calming. She asks, “Does it itch?”

“Nah,” he says, and she leans in, kisses his cheek, soft against his skin.

“You’re lucky you’re cute,” she tells him, and smiles when it makes him laugh, just a little.

“Yeah,” he says, looking at her, the expressive eyes, the smiling mouth, “I _am_ pretty lucky, huh.”


	4. aire y esperanza

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from rosario castellanos' "el retorno"

“I just think you should stay over.”

Claudia raises her eyebrows. It’s her lunch period, but she’s allowed to leave campus, so they’re at the burger joint two blocks from the school. It’s the last Friday before winter break, and she’s got a shift at the church after her last class, but she doesn’t have another until Sunday. His mom’s driving out to San Bernardino with Cesar tonight—got into a fight with Oscar about it. Her cousin, the one they stayed with while they were in Tijuana, lives out there now, and his mom seems like she’s finally kicked the habit.

He doesn’t expect it to last. She did the same shit after their dad got locked up, kept it clean for a few months before crashing bad enough that he had to stay up a whole night with her, cussing her out whenever she’d start to fall asleep. His tía won’t tolerate that shit, though. Probably why they never see her, and the only reason Oscar’s letting her take Cesar with.

His ma got real uppity about that—_What, you think you in charge now, niño?_—and started arguing with him, threatened to grab the belt if he kept giving her shit. She’s never been able to land a hit that actually hurt him, not even with the chancla. She was more mad that she couldn’t force him to come with, the way she could when he was still little. Oscar ain’t been one to listen to nobody since he was about fourteen. There are a few exceptions, but his ma ain’t one of them.

Which means he’s got the house to himself until Saturday afternoon, maybe Sunday morning if his tía convinces Penelope to spend another night there, which she’ll want since it’s the holidays. Something tells him he’ll end up dragged over for New Years next weekend, anyway, but if he’s got an empty house then he wants to use it to his advantage. Meaning he wants Claudia in his shitty twin so he can try some things they haven’t managed in the backseat of his car. From the look on her face, she’s onto him.

“What am I supposed to tell my folks, huh?” she says, stealing one of his fries. They’re playing footsie underneath the table, and he rubs her ankle, just a little.

“Say you’re staying with Celi.”

“They’ll call if they don’t believe me,” she says. “Tomorrow’s Nochebuena.”

“So make them believe you,” he says.

She wrinkles her nose. “I didn’t bring any clothes to school with me,” she tells him, “I’m not about to walk out your house tomorrow and have everyone know what went down.”

“Oh, is that what we doing?” he says, “I was just tryna make you dinner.”

She scowls, looks pleased, “Ay, dundo, don’t try and act—what else was I gonna think!”

“You only want me for one thing, huh,” he says, grinning, “I thought you was a real one and you just tryna get in my pants.”

“You’re annoying,” she says, biting her lip to keep from smiling too wide, “fine. I think I have some stuff in my gym locker.”

“Lemme guess. You want me to do your laundry, too?”

“I don’t want you for just _one_ thing,” she says, shit-eating grin on her face now, and he laughs. Feels giddy at the thought of getting to wake up next to her the next day.

“Whatchu want for dinner, then?”

“Surprise me,” she says, and when he drops her off at school again, kisses him goodbye.

In between then and dinner, though, he’s got shit to do. Has a few drops, standard stuff he does during the afternoons. Heads home afterwards to say goodbye to Cesar and ignore his mother’s last ditch efforts to drag him with her, doesn’t hit the grocery store until long after the sun’s already set.

Claudia grins real big like she’s surprised he’s picking her up from work. He’s not used to anyone besides Cesar being genuinely thrilled to see him. It throws him off every time, even if he knows she likes him as much as she does.

“Whatchu make for me?” she says as they leave the parking lot, and he laughs a little, shakes his head.

“You hungry, ma?”

“You stay saying you’re a good cook,” she says, “put your money where your mouth is, Diaz.”

“No me crees?”

“We’ll see,” she says, fingers laced with his while they drive, and smiles when he squeezes their hands. Says, after, when they walk into the house, “Oh! It smells good.”

“You thought I was gonna order pizza, huh,” he says, one eyebrow raised, and she knocks their shoulders together before kicking her shoes off. He even vacuumed.

“No,” she says, flutters her eyelashes at him when he tugs her close. Kisses him with both hands on his chest, smiles like she’s won the lotto when she pulls back. “What is it?”

“Pasta primavera,” he says, careful, like he's reading off the recipe, “you like mushrooms, right?”

“Yeah,” she says, lets him lead them to the kitchen. Stops when they get there, goes, “Wait.”

“Yeah?” He thought she’d like the flowers. Maybe should have asked her which she liked best, first, but he figured he might as well spend the extra couple of bucks for the bouquet. Had to go digging through the garage for a vase, trimmed the stems and everything. Went and found some actually nice plates, too, even a glass jarra for water that looked like something out a catalogue.

She blinks up at him. “You…”

“What, you got allergies now?” he says, wonders secretly if she does. Maybe—“You don’t like them, o qué?”

“No, I do,” she says, eyes huge, “this is…I shoulda brought something.”

“Pues,” he says, pulling her chair out for her, “you’re here, no?”

“That doesn’t count,” she says, watches him as he sits across from her. Pours water from the pitcher for them both—sliced some citrus for it, even.

“Yeah it does,” he says, and then, nervous, suddenly, “you gotta tell me if this tastes like shit, though.”

She stifles a giggle, fixes him with an unimpressed look that does little to hide how pleased she is. “No que sabés cocinar?”

“New recipe,” he says, serving her first, “I thought it was fine, but you got some weird taste, nena.”

“Hawaiian pizza’s good,” she says, nose in the air like she’s about it, and she laughs at whatever face he makes. “I’m surprised you ain’t like it.”

“Claudis,” he says, watching as she takes a bite, “you can’t pay me for that.”

“Mhm,” she says, makes a face at him. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Is it good?”

“Yeah,” she says, laughing, “really good.”

He nods. Feels proud of himself, but mostly pleased to have her looking at him the way she is, happy as ever. He likes being the one making her grin like that.

It’s—_nice_, sitting together like this. The word doesn’t feel strong enough but it’s true. He’s got Claudia to himself, gazing at him real fondly while they have dinner, swapping chisme about the neighborhood and trying to make each other laugh. Claudia insists on helping him clean up afterwards, bumps her hips against his as they pass dishes to one another.

“Thanks for dinner,” she says, after, stepping close to him. If they were other people, maybe, this would be the part where he’s dropping her off at her place and gets a kiss at the door. Oscar’s glad they’re not other people, though. In this life, Claudia puts her arms around his neck and kisses him until they’re both breathless, and he finally gets her into bed.

He wakes up the next morning to eggs on the table for him. Raises an eyebrow when he sees Santi Guerrero sitting there with his hands behind his head, looking more comfortable, maybe, than he should. It’s not even nine.

“Qué onda, compa,” he says, offering Santi a fist bump, and moves to where Claudia’s scrubbing at the pan.

“Nothin’ much, homie,” Santi says, “wasn’t sure if you was around today.”

“I leave the door open o qué?” He rests his hand on Claudia’s lower back, noticed she was a little stiff just from looking at her.

“Nah,” he says, “Chucho left his keys at my place, figured I’d drop them off today. Your girl’s real nice.” His smile’s not all that friendly.

“Yeah,” Oscar says. He says to her, voice a little low like he’s trying to keep a secret, “I got that.”

“Ya lo hice,” she says, glancing at him from the corner of her eye for a second before turning to look at him more fully, like she can’t stand not to. “You hungry?”

“Yeah,” he says again, looking at her, and brings up a hand to cover their faces so he can kiss her real quick. Wants to head back to bed but the food smells good, and he’s got to get rid of Santi, besides. He says to him, taking a seat in front of his plate, “I’m around, g, but I’mma be kicking it this weekend.”

Santi smirks a little. Says, “I feel you, homes. ‘S one’a those days.”

“Right,” Oscar says, and tilts his head at the way Santi glances over at Claudia. She dries her hands, touches his shoulder.

“Be right back,” she says, and disappears down the hallway. When he looks away, Santi looks smug.

“’Tá bien guapa, sabes.”

“Thanks,” Oscar says, takes a bite of his omelet before he says something he might regret.

“How long you been seeing her?”

“Couple months,” he says. Ignores the curl of unease in his stomach.

“She that hyna you was always running ‘round with, no? Surprised you ain’t smash sooner.”

“She’s my girl,” Oscar says, like a correction.

Santi holds his hand up like surrender. Still grinning like he’s got some joke he’s not sharing. “I feel you,” he says again, “I’ll head out, g. Ain’t tryna get in the way of a good thing.”

“Appreciate it,” Oscar says, not meaning it. Is maybe cursing Chucho for being dumb enough to carry his spare around—only gave him the key in case he ever needed a last-minute sitter for Cesar, after all. No reason for it to fall into Santi’s hands. “I’ll hit you up Monday, a’right, man?”

“Sounds good,” he says, and it’s not until the front door shuts that Oscar lets out the breath he’s been holding. Tries to pretend like Santi was never there, waits for Claudia to come back in the meantime. He breathes easiest when she’s around, after all.


	5. una canción susurrada

Valentine’s Day isn’t something Oscar’s had to celebrate with anyone, and he knows for a fact that it’s the same case for Claudia. He figures that’s as good a reason to make it a good one this year. He’s just not sure how to go about doing that.

His tía Alejandra thinks it’s cute.

“Ay, mijo, qué guapa,” she says, after strong-arming him into showing her a picture of Claudia. It’s a nice photo, her smile wide over a huge mangonada she made Oscar buy her. Sometimes, when he hasn’t seen her in a couple days, he’ll pull it up and just grin.

He may or may not have come over today and tried to ask his tía for some gift ideas. Girls like jewelry, he figures, but Claudia doesn’t wear much besides a pair of simple looking gold hoops in her ears, the kind she can sleep in. Clothes seem like trouble, he doesn’t know what kind of shoes she likes (he’s pretty sure she has no strong preference, actually), and, well. He wants to get her something that will make her think of him.

“Una pulsera?” his aunt says. She’s at the stove making him some chicken quesadillas. His stomach’s been growling since he walked in, Cesar still ignoring him in favor of helping Vero with some school project. Chucho’s out with _his_ girl right now, which is the only reason Oscar’s comfortable enough to actually bring up Claudia. His boys clown him when she’s around. “Oh, those charm bracelets are real cute.”

“How much are they?”

“Hm,” she says, “good question. Pues, qué le gusta?”

“Kids,” he says, and flinches when his tía gives him a dirty look. “That’s not—she wants to be a teacher, I mean.”

She wags her finger at him. “Be _good_, Oscar. She sounds smart.”

“She is,” he says, honest. “I just wanna get her something she’ll like.”

“Don’t go with flowers,” she says, “and if you do, don’t just get roses. Que aburrido. Chocolate works, though, no conozco a nadie que no le gusta.”

“Yeah,” he says, “but any dude can buy her that.”

“I think the bracelet’s your best bet, mijo,” she says, setting his plate in front of him. “Now eat, you’re too skinny.”

He ends up dragging Cesar to the mall with him that week; the kid’s not too pleased, even after Oscar offers to buy him clothes.

“I don’t want clothes,” he says, and Oscar’s _this_ close to telling him that he better keep that attitude for the next ten years. Buying him shit’s expensive even if Oscar’ll do it gladly. “I wanna go to the park.”

“I’ll take you when we’re done,” he says. He’s pretty sure there’s a Pandora somewhere in here, even if he’s never stepped foot inside it. He’s been looking at their website, has an idea of what he’s about to drop on this gift, but it’s fine. It’s the kind of present that’ll make Claudia think of him every time she wears it, and it’d be dope to see her wearing it every day. He’ll buy her the bracelet and some charms and hopefully it’ll make her grin up at him like she did when he bought her that damn mangonada she made him finish for her.

He just…really likes her, is the thing.

While he’s trying to figure out where the damn store is, though, they pass by one of those kiosks—the kind that switches it’s shit out with massive blowout sales every few months. He really means to get her the bracelet. It’s classy; he can buy her more charms for her birthday, but the kiosk sign says _Customizable Necklaces – Great Deals!_ and Oscar gets an idea.

“Oye, compa,” he says, the dude manning the stand brown and bored-looking. “How much for a name?” and grins, just a little bit, when he hears it.

Once they get home, he tells Cesar not to ruin the surprise.

“It’s a present, homie,” he says. The kid’s distracted by his McDonald’s Happy Meal, only looks up when Oscar swipes a fry.

“Those are mine,” he pouts, and Oscar raises an eyebrow.

“Uh-huh. Who paid for them?”

Cesar frowns. Oscar tries very hard not to laugh.

“Me oyes?” he says instead. “Don’t be telling nobody what I bought, alright?”

“Qué hiciste,” their mother says, and Oscar jumps. He figured she was knocked out in her room. She moves real quiet, sometimes; he can’t ever get used to it.

He schools his expression carefully, tries not to scowl. She’ll grab a _matamoscas_ and pretend it actually hurts him, and he’s not in the mood to get into it with her today. “Nothing,” he says.

“Qué le estás diciendo a mi niño,” she says, and rubs her hand over Cesar’s hair. She ducks her head, kisses his head, and he beams up at her. She’s not doped up, at least. Oscar wouldn’t put it past her to have lit up a blunt out back like he does, though—her eyes are bloodshot, but that could be because of anything. He’s never seen her look well-rested outside of a photograph.

“Nothing,” he says, again, petulant like he’s the seven-year-old and not Cesar.

“Don’t lie to me,” she says, “whatchu spending your money on?” She takes one of Cesar’s fries, too, but the mocoso doesn’t say anything, just smiles at her like he’s missed her or something. Christ.

Oscar scowls. The three of them don’t often sit at the table together—he doesn’t know what his mom does about dinner, usually, but more often than not it’s just him and Cesar in the mornings and at night. If he gets up she’ll probably start an argument. She’ll probably start one even if he tells her the truth. He sets his jaw, says, “Valentine’s Day’s this week,” and she blinks.

“Y qué?”

He rubs a hand over his face. “So le compré algo pa’ mi novia.”

Her eyebrows go up. “You still seeing that girl? O es una nueva?”

“Tiene nombre,” he says, flat, even if it’s probably better that she not know it.

“Uh-huh,” she says, “of course you’re running around with some salvadoreña. She with the Salvatrucha o qué? You always looking for trouble.”

When he says nothing she rolls her eyes.

“You better be careful,” she says, puts her hands over Cesar’s ears, “you knock that girl up, no te voy a ayudar.”

“I’m not stupid,” he says, knows there’s a sour curl to his mouth that’s going to infuriate his mother, “and neither is she.”

“Hijo,” she says, hands still over Cesar’s ears while he watches them both with wide eyes, “do she know what that tear means?”

His jaw clenches.

“Cómo no,” Penelope says, and puts her hands down again. Strokes Cesar’s face, watches him like she’s never seen him before in her life, like this is the only chance she will. “Nomás pa’ decirte. Be careful.”

“I know,” he says, and she lets the topic lie.

Doesn’t let it ruin Valentine’s Day, though, takes Claudia out to dinner at some diner they won’t get second glances in just for being there. They walk around afterwards—they really _do_ drive everywhere, but it’s nice out for February, in the sixties today. He asks Claudia if she’s cold and she says she’s fine, but he tucks her under his arm anyway, likes how she fits there every time.

“Whatchu mean her man has a side piece?”

“Hombre,” Claudia says, grinning up at him, “_she’s_ the side piece.”

“And she didn’t know?”

“Te lo juro.”

“I don’t believe it,” Oscar says, “Araceli’s not _that_ dumb.”

“Shh,” she says, like her homegirl is going to overhear them, “don’t be _mean_.”

“Claudis, am I wrong?” he says, grins when it makes her laugh, “Okay, so what she do then? His girl was tryna start shit?”

“Yeah,” she says, “pero _right_ outside the doors, like, that’s still school property, you know? The security guards grab you for that.”

“They do their jobs now?”

“Nah,” she says, and there’s something wicked about how she smiles, “Celi got a chunk of her hair, sabés?”

He feels his jaw drop, a little bit. Feels—a little hot, at the self-satisfied smirk on his girl’s face, actually, how that bit of thrill still lingers around her mouth. He believes Araceli can throw down; Claudia can, too. Her expression, though…Oscar’s into it. Sue him.

“No mames,” he says, “they ain’t grab nobody for that?”

“Nah,” she says, “her man was in the car—”

“Wait, what—”

“_Listen_,” she says, makes her eyes go big, “it was crazy, he was the one who drove them there.”

“They pulled up to fight outside a _high school_?”

“Hombre,” she says, “no dije que tenían razón.”

“That’s just Araceli,” he says, and she doesn’t even reprimand him this time, shrugs instead like she knows it already.

They head back to the car, eventually, fingers laced like usual. It’s not too late, but it’s dark out. He likes this time of day with her, but he likes kicking it with her regardless. He still hasn’t given her his gift yet, though. Said they should wait until after dinner, and Claudia agreed, smiled while saying she hoped he liked what she got him.

They climb in and before he can lose his nerve he says, “Ya quieres tu regalo?”

“Oh,” she says, sounding pleased, “yeah, let’s—aquí tengo el tuyo.”

“It’s fine,” he says, even as he reaches into the back seat and grabs her gift. He double wrapped it in a plastic bag just to throw folks off, struggles to pull it out now that he actually wants to give it to her. She’s got a little package in her hands, smiles patiently while he gets her gift ready.

“Don’t get mad,” she says, and he blinks at her, “but I got you two things.”

“Claudia,” he says, “why—”

“You paid for dinner today,” she says, like she’s practiced this, “so that counts as one, y el que tienes es dos.”

“That doesn’t—”

“It counts,” she says, tilting her head defiantly, and he bites his lip. Tries not to grin.

“I’m getting you back for this,” he says, and then, “you gotta open your present first.”

“No,” she says, and grins a little at his expression, “ay, at the same time. Or you first. I don’t care.”

“Mujer,” he says, and she giggles, hands out her little wrapped gift.

“C’mon,” she says, “it’ll take five seconds.”

“You real stubborn, you know that?”

“Yup,” she says, even as they swap gifts. She peers at it for a second, puts it up against her ear. “Is it a dog?”

“Claudia,” he says, laughing despite himself, “I swear to—”

“Open your gift,” she demands, and slides her fingernail under the wrapping on hers, “I wanna make sure you like it—”

“I will,” he says, and looks away from her to open the damn thing. Opens it and finds two things, like she said: a bottle of cologne he’ll smell later and a chain with a cross on it, like he’s been saying he needs to get for ages. He takes a deep breath. Every time they’re at the mall or passing by a jewelry spot he mentions it. Thought she was just humoring him when she asked how big he wanted the cross. “I—”

When he looks at her she’s blinking at the necklace in her hands. Claudia turns to him, eyes huge and—maybe a little teary. Maybe it’s the light. Oscar’s stomach clenches anyway. “You got me a necklace,” she says, stating the obvious, but when she smiles it’s—everything. The whole world right in front of him. “Oscar,” she says, voice real fragile, “I. I love it.”

He can’t help it. Doesn’t even think about it, just looks at her shining eyes and her smiling mouth and the way her fingers curl, protective, around the thin chain, _Oscar_ on a pendant hanging off it. He says, not careless but so naturally it’s like he’s already said it a thousand times before, “I love you,” and the whole world stops.

Her lips part. He watches, frozen, as her eyebrows furrow. Knows deep down that he means it. Wants, desperately, for it to be true for her, too. She blinks again—and those are definitely tears, he wasn’t wrong—

“Really?” she says. Her face is so open. He can see everything, there, wonders if she sees the same when she looks at him.

He clears his throat. Does it a second time. Says, voice rough, “Yeah. I love you.”

She presses a hand to her mouth. Says, after, “I love you, too,” still staring at him.

He takes a shaky breath. Face hot, still. Swallows and says, “Cool.” Tries to make sense of how he didn’t mean to say it, how it’s still true, and how she said it back.

She nods, a little bit. Closes the box, slowly, like she can’t stand to look away. Puts it in her bag, then puts the bag on the floor. She says, “Kiss me,” her eyes huge and focused, like she doesn’t need anything but him right now, and Oscar doesn’t even think about not listening.


	6. pega la vuelta

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from pimpinela's "olvídame y pega la vuelta" which is such a funny song and doesn't fit this chapter but i love it anyway 
> 
> anyway we're dealing with some xenophobic rhetoric / anti-Central American expressions here, claudia is a saint and one day i'll be nice to her. today is not that day.

Oscar’s not dumb enough to think the two of them were going to be perfect forever, but he was kind of hoping.

He gets arrested on a Tuesday. It’s fucking embarrassing—trips over his own feet trying to dodge some dudes from 19th Street, practically falls into an officer’s lap. He hits the hood of the squad car with zero grace, ends up patted down and he’s got coke on him, of course.

“Don’t worry, kid,” the guy says. Oscar fumes in the backseat, his arms behind him and his face stinging from where he hit the ground after rolling off the car, “you’re not even in our database. First time arrested?”

Oscar says nothing. Did the whole _I’m using my right to remain silent_ spiel all the kids on the block know to cough up. The guy laughs.

“He’s got a tear on his face,” his partner says, and doesn’t seem too pleased when the guy shrugs.

“That’s Freeridge,” he says, and then they’re booking him and he has to decide who to call. His mom’s at work, first of all, and probably won’t front the cash he needs. He’s not about to make his tía cry, and his boys…well. He’s got one real option, is the thing.

Cuchillos shakes his head at him like a disappointed father when he shows up. Oscar wonders if just staying locked up was a better idea. He asks him if he’s alright, and then when he’s going to get his money back.

“Soon,” he says, “Before court.”

Cuchillos laughs. His hand is heavy on Oscar’s shoulder. “No sabes como es, mijo. Show up whenever they ask you and I won’t have to deal with you or your ma. Como está?”

“Fine,” Oscar says, pretending he didn’t hear the threat. “She’s good.”

“Good,” he says, and then takes Oscar’s sorry ass home, where he sits next to Cesar on the couch and holds him close for as long as he’ll let him.

He knows he’s being shifty when Claudia asks where he’s been all week. He picks her up after she’s gotten home from work on Friday, shrugs when she asks what’s up.

“I got arrested.”

“What?” She’s staring at him. He can feel it, but he keeps his eyes on the road as they pull away from the curb. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he says, “I got court but. Yeah.”

“Christ,” she says, “pues. What now?”

“Whatchu mean?”

“Well…you got court,” she says, “whatchu gonna do?”

He glances at her. “Go to court…? What else?”

“No,” she says, slowly, “with…sabés, with the Santos.”

His head swivels towards her, back to the road. “I don’t get you.”

“Shouldn’t you be on the downlow?” she says, and there’s something about her tone he doesn’t like. “You in the database, now.”

“So what?” he says, notices how she twitches when he says so. “It was gonna happen anyway.”

“What, so it don’t matter?”

“It doesn’t.”

“_What_?”

It doesn’t get any better from there. Oscar doesn’t like being told he doesn’t think, though, doesn’t like the suggestion that he’s out of his depth or doesn’t know what this life is all about. Snaps, his fingers clenched on the steering wheel, “Don’t talk to me like that. You don’t know nothing ‘bout what I do,” because it’s true. She’s not living it like he is.

“You think I don’t?” The light turns red. Oscar feels like everything is about to disintegrate, barely tethered to Earth as is. “You think I’m _stupid_? Like my dad wasn’t doing the same shit before they deported him?”

“Your dad was some ain’t shit salvatrucha, nena,” Oscar says, feels his face go hot even as he says the words. Like his mother’s at his shoulder; something inside him curdles, ugly. Can hear his father when he says, “So watch your fucking mouth.”

It’s true that her dad was MS-13. Oscar can’t—he shouldn’t have said that, though, shouldn’t be cursing at her, and Claudia must agree, if her taking off her seatbelt and climbing out the car without a word means anything. He stares at her as she leans into the passenger-side window, jaw tight. Whole expression like he’s never seen it, or at least not directed at him, before.

She says, “Chupá mi pito, pendejo,” and marches back the way they came, middle finger up. Oscar stares at her until someone starts honking at him, and then he—

He just goes home.

Shows up at Claudia’s house the next day anyway, as good as kicked out of his own crib when his ma got tired of him moping around (_Your li’l girlfriend leave you, mijo? Maybe she’s smarter than I thought—_). Knocks on the door instead of calling her to let her know he’s there, straightens his back when her foster mom opens the door.

They’re white; Freeridge is mostly Black and brown, but that don’t mean there aren’t some white folks around the neighborhood anyway. They don’t like Oscar much, and today he can’t even blame them. He asks if Claudia’s home and she doesn’t seem too pleased to admit she is, calls for her anyway without Oscar having to ask. Doesn’t say anything while they wait, though, just disappears back inside once Claudia’s at the door.

She raises an eyebrow—doesn’t look happy to see him. It stings.

“Hey,” he says, swallows, “you hungry?”

She cocks her hip. Talking to him through the screen, even. “Why you here?”

“Claudis,” he says, and maybe his voice cracks a little bit. Watches as she sucks on her lower lip. “Can we talk?”

There’s a split-second where Oscar thinks she’s about to say no. She glances behind her instead, bites the inside of her cheek. Says, “Fine,” and steps out onto the porch.

They’re silent even after they get in the car. Oscar starts to drive and doesn’t know what to say, is just thinking of how her jaw clenched and the anger in her eyes the day before, how he sounded like his mother when she said she wanted no _Salvis_ in her house. He feels sick.

Finally, Claudia speaks.

“You don’t get to talk to me like that,” she says, deadly serious. “I’m not some Santo bitch. You wanna talk shit, find some other girl.”

“I—”

She says, still looking out the window, “I’m not doing this again. Next time you wanna act like a jackass, that’s on you.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, “I didn’t. I wasn’t.” He takes a deep breath. “I shouldn’t have said none’a that shit.”

“But you did,” she says.

“I fucked up,” he says. Knows it’s true, knows it surprises her that he’s admitting it from the way she turns to look at him. She’s wearing a blue t-shirt, some slogan across the front. He can see the glint of the necklace he got her for Valentine’s Day peeking out over the collar.

“Is that what you think of me?” she says, fingers laced tightly in her lap, “What, I’m just some hoodrat running ‘round with Santos? That all there is for some shorty from Pico Union?”

Oscar already felt like shit, and now he feels even worse. “No,” he says, desperate to his own ears.

“No te creo,” she says. Voice flat. She clears her throat. “I hear how your mom be talking. I know a lot of folks think Salvis ain’t shit.”

He flinches. “Don’t say that.”

“Say what?” she says, and finally looks at him. “That I’m a dirty _Salvi_? Pues, sí soy.”

“Don’t call yourself…” He can’t bring himself to say it. Doesn’t want to sound like his mother, or his father, or anyone but himself right now. Maybe not even that. They’re driving aimlessly, like usual, except there’s nothing relaxing about it, not when he isn’t holding her hand and trying to make her laugh. He feels so tense it’s like he’s going to buzz right out of his skin.

“D’you forget,” she says, and he can finally hear the ache beneath her words, “that I’m Salvi, too? What, you pretend I don’t say vos?”

He finally pulls over, doesn’t bother checking if he’s allowed, across the street from the park where they met for the second time. He turns to her and wonders what she sees when she looks at him. What she feels.

He says, “That doesn’t matter to me.”

She frowns, says, “It should.”

“But—”

“It _matters_,” she says, less angry this time, more like she’s trying to drive the point home, “it matters that I’m not Mexican. Not every Spic in LA is, don’t matter if I don’t have a problem with them. A lotta them got problems with me. With Salvadorans, and Hondurans, and all of us who ain’t from fucking…TJ, or whatever city they wanna talk about. Your boys don’t like us, either.”

Oscar stares at her. “Some of the Santos are…we’re not all Mexican.” He can’t think of any names. He thinks Chilango, despite his name, is half-Salvadoran, at least.

She presses her palm against her eye for a second. Takes a deep breath. “You saying that it don’t matter that I’m Salvadoran feels like…” She struggles for a moment. Says, “Like if you ignore it, then I’m perfect. There’s nothing wrong with me being Salvadoran. You don’t gotta…you don’t gotta say you want me even though I’m Salvi.”

“It’s—shit. That’s not what I mean.” He doesn’t know how to convince her. “That’s not how I. How I think of you, or nothing like that.”

“Okay,” she says, “but. That’s what it sounds like.”

Oscar says nothing. Doesn’t know what to say.

She says, “You can’t call me a salvatrucha, or a Salvi, or—or guanaca, or nothing like that, alright? You can’t call nobody that, ever. I don’t care what your mom be saying about us.”

“Claudia…”

“No,” she says. Her face is still so serious. Still looking like he’s hurt her, and he has. “I’m…there’s nothing wrong with me. You can’t say that.”

“I won’t,” he says, curls his fingers over the chain he’s wearing—same one she got him. He feels cold. “Te lo juro. I won’t do it again, and I—I shouldn’t have said it, I know. I’m sorry.”

She swallows. The breath she takes is a little shaky. “Okay,” she says. Puts her fingers against her mouth, bites at her thumbnail. “Good.”

The two of them just look at each other for a minute. She purses her mouth. Still looks sad.

“Can I hug you?” he says, feeling like an asshole.

She nods, immediate, and says, “Yeah,” while she reaches for him, tucks her face against his neck when he wraps his arms around her.

“I’m sorry,” he says, again, against her hair, and feels her nod against his neck. All he wants is to hold her tight. Does his best, the two of them leaning over the center console, until there’s a knock on the driver’s window that draws them apart.

The same officer—_Estevez_, and ain’t that a bitch—who arrested him is there, grinning widely. “Am I interrupting something?”

Before Oscar can say anything, Claudia says, clearly on the verge of tears, though he’s pretty sure they’re angry ones, “Are you _kidding_ me—”

“Claudis,” he says, a little scared of the look on her face, and then, nervous, “Officer Estevez.”

Estevez raises both his eyebrows. He looks scared, too. Clears his throat before he speaks. “You can’t park here,” he says to Oscar, the inch of space between the window and frame more than enough to hear him. “Just. So you know.”

“Thanks,” Oscar says, and starts the car. “Uh. Good to see you.”

“Stay out of trouble,” Estevez says, and walks back to his squad car a little faster than he needs to.

They wait for him to leave before doing the same, and Claudia says, voice flat again, “Lo conocés.”

“Yeah,” he says. “He, uh. Was one of the cops who—”

“Okay,” she says, too calm. “Cool. Pues.”

“Are you hungry?”

“Please take me home,” she says, but reaches out and squeezes his knee. Curls her fingers with his when he puts his hand over hers. Oscar…feels lighter, for it. Like he can breathe again. Like he can come back from this.


	7. tú por mí

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> major warnings for domestic violence between two original characters :( stay safe
> 
> title from rosalía and ozuna's "yo x ti, tu x mi"

Santi decides to beat on his girl at a party.

Oscar’s there, of course. Santos shit like usual. He’s got his arm around Claudia’s waist, is flirting with her like he doesn’t already know she’s going home with him. They’re at Santi’s place for once, celebratory for whatever reason. It’s May already, the summer heating up steadily.

Next to him Adrian nurses a lukewarm Victoria, looks like a veteran of this life already. Figures, considering he got jumped in same time as Oscar, even if he’s a year younger than him. The cross sinks into boys’ skin sooner rather than later, around here.

Santi’s been dating Leticia Mata a few months. Her brother goes by Chilango, doesn’t matter that sometimes he talks to Claudia using _vos_. He’s alright, maybe a couple years older than Oscar is. They call her Chilanga, even, since their moms is from D.F. Their accent’s strung between the two countries in a way Claudia’s isn’t, even if Oscar can fake it pretty well.

Like usual, Santi’s been using all afternoon. Oscar’s kept Claudia close for mostly selfish reasons, but also because he doesn’t want her anywhere near whatever explosion Santi will inevitably cause. Unfortunately, from the sound of yelling from the kitchen, his girl’s caught in the crossfire.

Oscar says, “Hold up,” distracted, and leaves Claudia standing with Adrian looking confused. Adrian’s just shaking his head, muttering about this being nothing new, but Santi’s a big dude and just because Chilanga’s mouthy don’t mean she can take him. He doesn’t walk in fast enough to stop shit from escalating the way he knew it would, though, even if he wishes he could.

Santi’s cussing at her, her wrist in one hand. He’s shaking her, and her lip is busted, and there’s a look of quiet fury on her face.

“Get your fucking hands off me,” she says, and then cries out when he twists her wrist in his grip, “you’re fucking hurting me!”

“Calláte la boca,” he spits, “’fore I do it for you,” and then they realize Oscar’s in the room with them. Santi straightens up, but he doesn’t let go of Chilanga. Her expression’s flattened into something more neutral, but Oscar’s met a lot of angry women in his life. The look in her eye could kill. He almost wishes it would. “Spooky.”

“Y’all alright?” Oscar says, like it isn’t clear what’s going on. “Shit got kinda loud.”

“We’re good,” Santi says. Shakes his girl a little, and Oscar tries not to flinch at the way it makes her face go ashen, like the pain’s so bad she can’t even make a sound. There’s blood on her chin. “Right, baby?”

“Actually,” she says, and Santi’s face transforms, ugly, pissed, “you was just telling me I’m some bitch you don’t even like—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Santi says, pulling her close again, and she starts yelling again, telling him to get away from her, and Oscar’s stepping in. He knows that expression well, the blown pupils, the snarling lip. For a second he’s convinced they’re all going to go crashing to the floor, and then he’s yanking Santi away from Leticia and she’s crying out, more pain than fury now.

“Muthafucker,” she hisses, one hand cradling the other, “pinche malparido, you—”

“Get the fuck off me,” Santi says, Oscar pushing him away from her, “bitch, a ver que te hago—”

“Relax,” Oscar snaps, “ya, calm the fuck down,” and almost doesn’t notice when Claudia ducks into the kitchen. He watches her from the corner of her eye, how she moves towards Chilanga like she can fix what looks like a dislocated wrist. Thinks of how he’s probably going to end up driving them all to Urgent Care, how folks are going to think he’s the one who did that. Once he’s sure Santi isn’t about to try and throw down with all of them, he turns to Claudia, brief, and tells her to go back outside.

She takes it personal, clearly, but something about how Chilanga looks—bloody, bruised, tired beyond all else—must convince her. She slips back to the party like nothing, leaves Oscar with a bad taste on the back of his teeth. It’s not too soon after that the police show up.

Fucking Estevez, Oscar thinks. He looks unsurprised to find Oscar there, but he’s cheerful anyway. “Diaz! You live here now?”

“No,” he says, tilting his head towards Santi, “’s a party tonight.”

“Sure,” Estevez says. His partner’s a few feet behind him, hand on his holster. Like most of the dudes ain’t strapped at this party. “Got a call about screaming. Everything good?”

“Yeah,” Oscar says, lying through his teeth and knowing it’s obvious, “you know how these get, huh?”

“Sure,” Estevez says, more serious now. He’s scanning the house behind them, even if he probably can’t see much. “Miss?”

Oscar flinches. Both he and Santi turn their heads, Leticia with her swollen lip and her carefully cradled hand staring out towards them with a dead look in her eye.

“Miss,” Estevez says, like he’s talking to a spooked animal or something, and it makes Oscar bristle, “you wanna step outside?”

She raises an eyebrow. Says, to Oscar’s surprise, “No.”

Estevez blinks. Clearly wasn’t expecting that. He opens his mouth, closes it. Says, after a solid ten seconds of shocked silence, “Are you hurt?”

She tilts her head, says, “I fell.”

Oscar sees Santi smirk. Feels fury where there was just distaste, curls his hands into fists and hopes neither Estevez or his partner notice.

“That so?” Estevez asks. He sounds sad, looks it when Oscar glances at him.

Leticia shrugs. Says, “Yeah. Sorry.”

“’S all good, Officer,” Santi says. He’s grinning, wide and happy to have gotten away with his shit again. Oscar tries to take a calming breath and only marginally relaxes.

“Sure,” Estevez says. Tilts his head at them. “Try to keep it down, yeah? Have a good night.”

“You, too,” Oscar says, and the three of them watch as both officers climb into their car. They say nothing until it’s clear the cops are gone from the block entirely. “Jesus,” Oscar says, like an exhale, and then turns to Chilanga, says, “I can drive you to Urgent Care.”

“She’s fine,” Santi says, flat. When he looks at her all Oscar sees is distaste. “No es nada.”

“Mutha—”

“Hey,” Oscar interrupts her, “c’mon. Lemme drive you.”

“The fuck I need your help for,” she says, but pushes past the both of them to walk out the door anyway. Oscar trails after her, means to just unlock the door so she can sit tight while he grabs Claudia. Santi decides to follow them out, though, and he’s still cussing at Leticia even if she’s giving it back just as bad.

“Don’t know why the fuck you complaining—”

“Look at my hand,” she snaps, “I need a fucking hospital, pendejo.”

“You shouldn’ta made me mad,” Santi says, and she spins around, eyes wide, mouth sneering. Oscar catches her around the waist, tries to keep himself between them. He knows how this shit tends to end, grew up learning when to let his folks keep at it and when to try and get Cesar out of there.

“Ya,” he says to her, “ignore him, I gotchu—”

“You after my girl now, compa?” Santi starts, “one cachuca bitch not enough for you, huh—"

Oscar doesn’t let him continue. Acts almost on instinct as soon as the words leave Santi’s mouth, turning around and throwing hands like he’s been wanting the last twenty minutes, not that he knocks Santi down. He’s hopped up, more aggressive than usual, and he can fight as well as Oscar can. Comes up swinging, gets Oscar in the face and he’s tasting blood.

Oscar swings again, spitting, and Santi’s talking shit now, loud like he was in the kitchen. He hears Chilanga shout for someone, maybe even at them, but nobody pulls them apart until after he and Santi both get a piece of one another, shouting like they don’t already have the whole block watching them. Oscar hisses when he doesn’t manage to avoid one last blow from Santi, knows he’s going to end up with a black eye the next day.

Something painful settles in his chest when he catches sight of Claudia and she flinches. He almost expects her to turn on her heel and leave, let him lick his wounds by himself, but she moves quick, steps close to him with her hands hovering like she doesn’t know where to put them.

“You okay?” she says, and she sounds scared. He takes both of her hands, holds them close to his chest. A couple guys, Chucho and la Oveja, it looks like, are still trying to calm down Santi, and he sees Adrian offer his phone to Chilanga, probably so she can call her brother.

He says, “I’m fine.”

“You’re bleeding,” she says, and he must look confused, because she tells him, “Your lip.”

“Kiss it better,” he says, but it doesn’t make her laugh. “Hey. I’m fine.”

“Hombre,” she says, shaking her head, but lets him slip his arm over her shoulder, both of them walking back towards his car without bothering with goodbyes. Her fingers dig into his side, their bodies tense together even if they’ll never reach the kind of explosive anger Oscar’s grown used to, Santos related or not.

Exhaustion settles over him. He hates to think of how good he felt not an hour earlier, kissing Claudia’s neck and singing some song she liked in her ear when no one was looking. Tonight was going to be a good one, Cesar with his tía until the morning, music and drinks and food, besides.

“I can drive,” he says, but Claudia just shakes her head at him, and he lets her take his keys.

Once inside the car she curls her fingers over his, careful to avoid where his knuckles sting, tender from catching Santi’s jaw. “You wanna grab Cesar?” she says, concerned, “I know your tía said she could watch him, but…”

Oscar nods. His mom’s…well. She dipped the day before, said she’d be back soon. Not the first time she’s done it this year, unfortunately. Fell off the wagon a little after he got arrested. He’s old enough to know her problems aren’t his, but that doesn’t mean he’s not thinking this, too, is his fault. He knows it’s not. Sometimes, though, he lets himself forget.

“Can you grab him?” Oscar says after they pull up, hates how he sounds when he says it. “My tía, she’ll…”

“Yeah,” she says, and leans over and kisses him carefully, his lower lip busted and throbbing. “You need ice.”

“When we get home,” he says, and she hustles to get Cesar. He watches her talk to his aunt, briefly, sees her put her hand on her arm when Alejandra tries to walk out towards the car. Claudia shakes her head, says something, and then Alejandra’s nodding, her face serious and sad-looking. Cesar gets into the back seat, no problem, even if he does start asking more questions than Oscar knows how to answer.

“You eat?” Oscar interrupts. It’s nearly ten already, and the kid should probably be in bed even if it is a Friday.

“Yeah,” Cesar says, “who hit you?”

“Cesar,” Claudia says, like the kid doesn’t know what their lifestyle entails. Oscar reaches out, squeezes her wrist. Thinks, briefly, about how small and fragile it is in his grip. Can’t imagine what was going through Santi’s head when he grabbed at Leticia like that, doesn’t want to ever understand it.

“Don’t worry,” Oscar says, and he directs it at both of them, “won’t happen again.”

When they get home, Oscar heads to the bathroom to start cleaning up. He tries to argue with Claudia, tell her that Cesar’s not her responsibility and he can get the kid to bed by himself. She reaches out and presses, gently, against the lid of his eye, and he hisses like she’s backhanded him.

“Fine,” he says, and then, “_ow_,” when he forgets about his lip and tries to kiss her.

“You’re so dumb,” she mutters, kisses his face instead and reminds him he needs ice.

The skin around his eye is tender, swelling already. He washes his face, flinches when he’s not careful enough with the cut at his lower lip. He’s barely coming back from the kitchen, frozen peas in hand, when he pauses outside of Cesar’s room. He’s got it decorated real cool for him, he thinks. A turquoise blue, his toys scattered around but not dirty by any means. There’s even a picture frame or two in there, Cesar when he was just a baby and a little older than that, a couple of his drawings taped to the walls.

“You ready for bed?” he hears Claudia say, and watches his escuincle nod his head. “You sure?”

“Yeah,” Cesar says. “Is Oscar okay?”

“He’s fine, baby,” she says, and Oscar feels—warm. _Good_. Knowing that Claudia loves this kid almost as much as he does. “Don’t worry ‘bout none’a that, alright?”

“Okay,” Cesar says, even if it’s clear he probably will, no matter how sleepy he sounds. Oscar feels for him. Wishes it didn’t have to be this way, but he’s standing in the hallway with peas pressed to his eye, not sure how to change the course of their lives and not convinced he could do it even if he did know.

“You want me to turn the lights off?”

“Yeah.”

She does, and Oscar watches, her figure barely illuminated by the bathroom light across the hall, as she bends to kiss Cesar goodnight. “Buenas noches, querido,” she says.

Cesar puts his little hand on her face. Says, “Night, mami,” sounding so, so sleepy, and Oscar feels his stomach drop. Watches Claudia flinch when Cesar’s hand moves, try to rush out of the room like there’s something she needs to run from.

“Jesus,” she says when she practically runs into him, “por Dios, Oscar, I didn’t even—what?”

She looks frazzled. He says, careful, “You okay?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I—” She cuts herself off. Narrows her eyes at him. “You heard that.”

“Yeah,” he says. “He’s called me papi, you know.”

She winces. “That’s—” she starts, and then shakes her head. Crosses her arms for a split second before reaching out and wrapping them around him instead. “You should ice your mouth too.”

“I will,” he says, and curls the hand that isn’t aching over the nape of her neck, buries his fingers in her hair. “You scared?”

“Yeah,” she says, sounding sad. “He shouldn’t…you shouldn’t be…” She can’t finish the sentence.

Oscar says, “I’m the closest thing he’s got, you know. To a mom or a dad.”

Claudia stays quiet. Takes a deep breath. “I know,” she says. She’s frowning. Oscar doesn’t like the look on her, doesn’t matter that he can’t really fix it this time around. “It’s just fucked up, sabés.”

“That’s our lives, nena.”

She shrugs, presses herself even closer to him. “Lemme see your hands, querido,” she says, and he lets her lead him to the bathroom again. Lets her pretend that taping up his knuckles after he gets into a fight isn’t another reminder of the things they have to deal with. Lets her imagine that if things were a little different, they’d have the whole world at their feet.


	8. lo eterno y lo fugaz

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi :~) title from shakira's día especial

Summer means a lot of things. The streets are hot, his girl’s working extra hours, and, most pressing for Oscar, Cesar isn’t occupied seven hours of the day anymore. It’s a little bit of a dilemma, considering his tía works full-time, his mom’s on dope again, and his cousin Vero hates him.

“I will pay you,” he says, slowly, standing in the doorway to the kitchen while Cesar runs straight through to the backyard, where an old playground set awaits. In front of him, Vero's crossing her arms. “You’re like. Twelve. You need the money.”

“I’m fourteen, asshole,” Vero says. She’s scowling at him, and Oscar doesn’t have time for this. He’s supposed to talk to Cuchillos today, and he knows better than to keep him waiting. He lives in a nicer part of town, clawed his way out of Freeridge with his hands bloody. They’re not meeting there, but at a diner nearby that’s used to the sight of Cuchillos—six-three, built like a linebacker, covered head to toe in tattoos.

He won’t ever admit to it, but Vero’s probably at the same level of intimidating. At fourteen she’s like a colt, all long limbs. But she’s got a meaner scowl than half the Santos Oscar knows, and even if she talks a lot of shit she can back it up just fine. She’s got the attitude of any Diaz, meaning she’s _mean_ and doesn’t apologize for it.

It stings a little bit. He remembers them getting along. But that was awhile ago, when he—well. Oscar’s never really felt like a kid. But when he was younger, at least, he could pretend to. And back then, when his tía Alejandra would watch them on weekends, that was the easiest time to pretend.

He doesn’t miss it. He’ll swear his life on it. Sure, if he were seventeen and anything other than a d-boy, his life would be a lot different. But that’s not his life, so he’s got to deal with it. And he _is_. That doesn’t mean his cousin isn’t being difficult.

“I’ll give you twenty bucks.”

“Forty,” she says, and picks at her nails. She has them filed sharper than any girl needs them, Oscar privately thinks. She’s in a Freeridge High tee and shorts, barefoot. The kitchen smells like citrus, and behind her he can see a plate with clementines, already peeled.

“You want _forty_ dollars to keep him from busting his head open out back? You deadass?”

“Did you _know_,” Vero says, voice dripping with vitriol, “that nannies charge twenty dollars an hour?”

“This ain’t Brentwood,” Oscar says. He’s going to end up paying her forty dollars but that doesn’t mean he’s not going to put up a fight. “We’re _blood_.”

Vero’s the only person in the world who’s got this ‘if looks could kill thing’ down pat. Oscar doesn’t admit this though.

“When are you coming back?”

“Tonight.”

“A qué horas?” she says, voice flat.

Oscar tries not to shout. Says, his teeth grit, “Before it gets dark.”

“It’s two,” she says, “it don’t get dark until eight. That’s six hours. You should be paying me—”

“Here,” he says, finally, digging into his pocket and pulling out a twenty and two tens. When he looks at her she’s got her hand out already, expectant like she knew he’d cave. Barely took any effort on her part. If she weren’t so annoying he’d find it a little funny. “He comes home with a _papercut_ and I’m taking that shit back.”

“No, you’re not,” she says, tucking the bills into her back pocket. “Can you leave? I’m supposed to be babysitting.”

“I swear to God,” he starts, stops himself. “You’re _so_ _annoying_—”

“Bye Oscar,” she says, shoving past him and towards the back door, “lock up when you leave.”

Oscar counts to ten before he heads out. Locks the door behind him anyway.

He makes it to the diner with thirty seconds to spare, takes care of his shit, and shows up at his tía’s before the sun’s fully set. He brings pizza, because the money he gave Vero has been more than replenished with his cut. Chucho’s home, too, and his tía likes having all her kids under one roof. She stays saying it like that too—_Todos mis chiquillos_, she tells him, making him stoop to kiss her goodbye, _under my roof, safe and fed_.

On the ride home, Cesar’s talking his ear off—something about building a fort while they waited for dinner to finish cooking, Vero patiently listening to every single instruction Cesar gave her. He’s an easy-going kid but he can get demanding when it comes to his vision, it seems like. Oscar’s gotten roped into building him pillow forts, too; Cesar doesn’t hold back on the critiques.

By nine o’clock the kid’s in bed, though, and when he checks on her his ma’s curled up in bed, TV blaring _Caso Cerrado_ of all things. Looks exhausted, whether from work or from withdrawal Oscar doesn't know.

“What,” she snaps when he stares, a little nauseous, at a couple made up of some middle aged dude and a sixteen year old being grilled by Ana María Polo.

“How can you watch this shit,” he says, unthinking, and is more than surprised when it makes her laugh.

“Watch your mouth,” she says, catching herself. She’s prettier when she smiles. She’d look better if she weren’t clearly using, so thin the washed out light of the TV makes her look skeletal. Cesar looks like her, or at least the few pictures of her that she’s got hidden in the back, the ones where she's young and vibrant, Freeridge not having taken all she could give and then some. It’s not like she’s anywhere near _old_, after all, barely nineteen when Oscar was born. “Where’s your brother?”

“Asleep,” he says. Wavers for a second before he says, “I’m heading out.”

She raises her eyebrow. Maybe Oscar looks like her, too; just not that often. “A dónde?”

“Gonna see my girl.”

She snorts. Says, “You too young to be talking like that. Your li’l girlfriend don’t got better things to do? ‘S late.”

“It’s barely nine.”

“Uh-huh,” she says. “I ain’t bailing you out, you get into trouble.”

“Right,” he says. There’s always a low-level buzz of irritation around his mother, doesn’t matter how he tries to ignore it. High or sober she’s like this—picks at flaws until they’re scabbing over, Oscar remembering her words no matter how innocuous they might’ve been. “Ahí voy.”

“Alright,” she says, and then, before he can finish pulling the door shut, “be safe.”

When he looks at her, her gaze is fixed to the TV. He takes a deep breath. It smells like cold cream, some Walgreens brand she’s been using forever. He says, “Night, ma,” and closes the door before she can look at him. Tries not to think about it for the rest of the night.


	9. espina de rosa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stream solita by kali uchis!! sorry for the spanish grammar lesson, if ur not a paisa don't use that word, cw colorism / anti-central american sentiment, and happy early new year :)

“Tell me how you say it,” Oscar says, and Claudia laughs. That might be more because of how the two of them are laid up in bed together, clothes tugged back on after an afternoon in Oscar’s bed. He’s got her half-heartedly pinned, not even on top of her, really, just his knee between hers and their fingers laced while he kisses her neck. “Tell me,” he says, even as he kisses her again, the two of grinning all the while.

“Say _what_,” she says when he pulls back. Her thumb rubs the back of his hand real softly, like she’s not even thinking about it. “You been knowing we talk different.”

“Yeah,” he says, “teach me. I wanna know what you be saying to me.”

“Dundo,” she says, eyelashes fluttering when he leans in to kiss her eyebrow. He could do this all day—the two of them wrapped up in each other, Claudia safe in his arms. “Acting like you can’t understand me.”

“You sound funny.”

She wrinkles her nose at him, and he presses his mouth there, too, grins at how it makes her roll her eyes and try not to smile. She lets go of one of his hands, brings it up to touch his face, her thumb tracing over his eyebrows, his mouth. She says, “I don’t even know how _you_ talk.”

“Claudis,” he says, “everyone talks like me. Who else uses vos around here?”

She sniffs. “Chilango’s Salvadoran.”

“He don’t use it with nobody but you and his sister.”

“Pues,” she says, stretching the word out, and Oscar kisses her again. They distract themselves like that for another little while, Claudia pushing him onto his back at some point. When she pulls away from him she looks a little flustered; Oscar feels the same. “Whatchu wanna say?”

He almost says _I love you_. Bites his tongue instead. “I dunno. Anything.”

“Hombre,” she says, still in his lap and not looking like she’s about to move, “work with me.”

“Just tell me some of them.”

“Choose a verb.”

“Nena,” he says. He remembers taking Spanish classes, before he dropped out. He was always good at it, even the grammar lessons. His English teachers were always impressed with his grades, but his Spanish instructors seemed surprised he knew where all the accents went, when to use _ser_ and not _estar_. The only thing that really tripped him up was the subjunctive; doesn’t matter how many times he and Claudia went over it together, he never had an explanation besides one sounding better than the other. His ma prefers Spanish, most of the time, anyway. Language is the only constant in his life, sometimes.

She raises her eyebrows, climbs off him afterwards. He’s disappointed for a split-second before she stretches out alongside him, her knee over his hip and her head propped up on one fist so she can look down at him. She looks good, relaxed, in a tank-top since it’s summer and no one can scold her about it in class. He’s not sure why she’s in jeans in this heat; he stays making fun of her for being cold all the time, and last time she said, _Just put your arm around me, Diaz_.

It’s warm in the house, like always. No one around here has central air, and the most they’ve got going is two fans per room this time of year. The whir of them follows Oscar as he moves through the hallway; he’s got his window cracked open in a desperate bid to get the air circulating, but that invites the noise from the neighborhood, too.

Claudia’s still watching him, mouth quirked up like he amuses her.

“What?” he says.

“You ain’t saying nothing,” she says, and reaches out to touch his face again. She lets her hand rest, palm spread, over his heart. He covers it with his own.

“Ven aquí.”

“No,” she says, smiling, and he returns it, easy, not having to think about it.

“How you say it?”

“Vení,” she tells him.

“That sounds fake.”

She snorts, tries to tug her hand back. He presses a kiss to her palm instead, and her fingers curl over his jaw. “Why you arguing with me?”

“Who’s arguing? That don’t sound like a real word.”

“I’ve said it to you before.”

“When?”

“When you’re being annoying,” she says, mouth pursing. “Vení aquí, querido,” she tells him, and he leans up to kiss her again.

“Otra.”

“Hablá.”

“Like, vos hablá?”

“Nah,” she says, and Oscar reaches out, tucks her hair behind her ear. “Vos hablás. Hablá is, um. It’s a command. How you say it with tú?”

“Habla—like, háblame? Or…tú hablas raro.”

She gives him an unimpressed look, but he grins at her anyway. He says, face going a little hot at the request, “And you love me?”

“Te quiero,” she says, automatic. She bites her lip afterwards, looks embarrassed.

“Yeah,” he says, cupping her face, “but. With vos.”

“Like…vos me querés? Is that—”

“Yeah,” he says again, “I love you too.”

“Baboso,” she says, obviously pleased, and Oscar’s just tugged her down for more kissing when the door swings open.

“Oscar,” his ma starts, and then stops, whole body going stiff at the sight of the two of them. She’s in a plaid dress, something that looks out of the nineties that she must have pulled from the back of her closet. Oscar can see the faint bruises at the insides of her elbows, tries not to flinch when Claudia’s fingers curl, tight, around his wrist. “_What_ are you doing.”

“Talking,” he says, flat, like the garbage can next to his bed doesn’t have a used condom and wrapper sitting at the bottom. He tries to curl his fingers over the back of Claudia’s hand, tries to make it clear through his touch alone that it’s fine.

His ma doesn’t look impressed, her mouth in a tight line. There are bags underneath her eyes, her dark hair pulled back, half-up. She’s working as a waitress at some cantina the real paisa types hit up, new immigrants without the legacy the Diaz and Reyes grudgingly cling to. His ma had family in TJ for a while, her folks moving back and forth across the border long enough that she wasn’t the first born in San Diego. For a few years, Oscar remembers, she took him to live with family down there. It didn’t last, and he thinks they’re worse for it.

She says, in Spanish, “You haven’t introduced us,” and Oscar bites his tongue.

He says, “You’ve seen her.”

“Y qué?” She doesn’t look like she really wants an introduction. Claudia’s stiff next to him, her leg still hitched over his hip, tense like a rabbit in hunt. He doesn’t want to take his eyes off Penelope, can only guess at what Claudia’s feeling.

He says through his teeth, “This is Claudia.”

His mother raises her eyebrows. “She don’t talk o qué?”

“Hola, doña,” Claudia says, voice carefully neutral. Penelope barely deserves a _Señora_. Oscar’s pretty sure she never changed her name after she married his pops. Claudia slowly moves her leg off him, straightens up to sit up and offer a greeting. She says, in Spanish still, “It’s good to meet you.”

His ma sniffs. Mouth still pulled down at the corners, but that’s practically normal now. “Ain’t the first time you been over here, huh.” Not a question but a statement. Her eyes are narrowed, and Oscar sees himself in the expression.

He sits up, too, both feet over the side of his bed. He asks, “Where’s Cesar?”

“Out back,” his mother says. She crosses both arms, cocks her hip, still framed in the doorway. Oscar’s never bothered learning her work schedule, and now he regrets it. Curses himself for not hearing any doors open, but it’s understandable, probably, the heat of Claudia against him far more worthy of his attention than most things. Not that it makes dealing with it now any better. Penelope fixes them both with the stink-eye, and Oscar wonders how much longer they’re going to have to keep interacting like this.

“What time is it?”

“Four-thirty,” she drawls, her eyes cataloguing every expression flitting across his face, jumping back to Claudia when she loses interest. She switches back to Spanish, says, “I was going to ask if you ate.”

“Earlier,” he says, and Claudia pushes herself to the edge of the bed, starts to stand.

“I should go,” she says, and Oscar watches the little bit of skin that shows between her tank and jeans, remembers how soft it was under his touch not so long ago.

“Why?” His stomach sinks. Penelope’s tone is acidic when she speaks. “You should stay for dinner,” she says, nothing friendly about it, and swishes away towards her bedroom. Oscar exhales, hard; feels like he just finished a marathon.

Neither of them say anything until they hear her door shut, and then Claudia turns to him, eyes wide.

She says, “I need to go home.”

“I don’t think she’s gonna kill us,” Oscar says, and feels a little bit like he’s telling the truth.

“What if she’d gotten home _earlier_?”

“Uh,” Oscar says, because he’d rather not think of it at all, “good thing she didn’t?”

“Oscar,” she says, reprimanding, and he runs his hand over his face.

Says to her, “She’s gonna throw a fit if you ain’t here for dinner.”

“That sounds like a you problem,” she says, but lets him tug her back to him, their shoulders pressed together where they’re sitting at the edge of the bed. “She don’t even like me.”

Oscar can’t deny it. “She knows you been over here, though.”

“Uh, and?” she says, making a face at him. He shouldn’t find it as endearing as he does. “I don’t live here. I can leave.”

He tries making eyes at her; she doesn’t look all that moved. “You want her to argue with me about it?”

“Stop,” she says, points her finger at him like she’s about to scold him the way his tía does. He grabs at her hand, kisses her palm, her fingertips, over her knuckles. “Oscar.”

“It’s fine,” he tells her, “just this once, and she won’t ever bother us again.”

“She’s gonna call la migra on me.”

“We’re all citizens, nena.”

Claudia sniffs. “Don’t mean your mama ain’t thinking it.”

“I know,” he says. He’s still holding her hand. “You gonna stay?”

“I guess,” she says, slowly, but then she’s grinning at him real wide, “but you owe me.”

“Whatever you want,” he says, and leans in to whisper in her ear, “I know you like when I—"

“Ya,” she says, half-heartedly shoving him away from her only to reel him in for a quick kiss, “you’re _annoying_, like that ain’t why we over here in the first place.”

“We coulda gone for a drive,” he says, standing up and pulling her up with him. “C’mon, let’s see what Cesar’s doing.”

They linger outside for a while, Cesar wrangling them into some game he doesn’t even know the rules for. Eventually they make it back inside, Kraft dinner and microwaveable vegetables awaiting them. Oscar thinks, longingly, of the meal he made the two of them, that first time Claudia spent the night. She’s gotten away with it a few times, here and there, and Oscar likes being able to wake up with her, even if her hair always ends up in his face. They fit together, even in sleep, and he’s pretty sure it’s not just because he’s got a shitty twin.

Right now, her face is perfectly impassive, hands folded neatly in her lap. Oscar wants to reach out, more for his own sake than for hers. Penelope serves them all while Cesar jabbers on about whatever it is he got up to at the Martinez place today.

“You shouldn’t play with her,” she says, when he brings up Monse, and he blinks up at her. Oscar bites the inside of his cheek, can tell Claudia’s doing the same thing.

“Why?”

His ma’s lip curls. Before she can say anything, Claudia says, “This is delicious.”

Oscar thinks his heart might stop. It’s boxed macaroni and off-brand peas and carrots. They’re drinking water without enough Tang to cover the tap taste. He tries to regulate his breathing.

Penelope considers her for a moment. “Where’s your family from, mija?”

Christ. Like this whole afternoon isn’t a mess already.

If Claudia’s irritated by the endearment she doesn’t show it. “Zacatecoluca,” she says, syllables falling from her mouth, sharp. She’s expecting a fight.

His ma tilts her head. Says, just before taking a sip of her water, “You born there, then?”

He watches Claudia go stiff. Takes in her collarbone, the delicate bones of her wrist, the way her eyelashes flutter, suddenly furious, as she tries to figure out if his mom is for real. Oscar has known her his whole life, so he unfortunately knows she’s being one hundred percent serious.

“No,” she says. The word comes out slow. Like she’s holding something back. “I wasn’t.”

Oscar should probably try to derail this train wreck. Penelope doesn’t give him the chance, asks, “Y tus padres?”

When he looks at her, Claudia’s face is too still. Carefully blank. Her eyes are shiny, though.

He says, “Ma,” and all three of them—Claudia, his mother, Cesar—blink when they turn to him. He swallows. Says, “Pass the salt?”

After, Claudia waves off his efforts to drive her home.

“Mom’s coming by,” she says. Sometimes she calls her foster parents by their names, other times _Mom and Dad_. It depends on her mood, though which one, Oscar’s not sure.

Oscar flinches anyway. “She don’t like me, either,” he says.

Claudia rolls her eyes at him, says, “Another thing we have in common then,” and they kiss on the porch until a car’s honking draws them apart. She says, squeezing his hand, “Bye, querido,” and he watches as they drive off.

When he walks back into the house, his ma’s at the table. She’s smoking a cigarette.

“Mijo,” she says, a bored drawl, “if you was gonna run around with a salvadoreña, you coulda at least picked one who ain’t so dark.”

He lets the door slam on his way out.


	10. a las niñas por bonitas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first update of the decade 🥺
> 
> title from pedro infante's maldita sea mi suerte :) whoever catches the la casa de las flores reference gets my heart

Vero turns fifteen in September. Tía Alejandra has been saving up for her party since her thirteenth birthday, so she rents a little event hall and decks it out real classy. Vero greets everyone as they walk in, wearing a blush-colored, off-the-shoulder dress that Claudia fawns over when the three of them arrive.

“You look so pretty,” Claudia says, smiling sweetly, and Vero—who’s ornery as a general rule—looks pleased.

“Thank you,” she says, “you, too. Not sure why you’re still with Oscar’s ugly ass.”

“Hey,” Oscar says, finally loosening his grip on Cesar, who’s been squirming since they got out of the car. He already warned the kid not to tug off his tie, but knowing how these parties usually go, Oscar will be lucky if he comes back to him with both shoes on. “C, say hi to Vero.”

“Hi,” he says, petulant, and allows Vero to squeeze him for maybe two seconds before bolting. “Bye now!”

Vero looks more like herself now, says, dry, “So much love for his sitter.”

“He likes me better,” Oscar says, because he can, and Claudia presses her knuckles to his sternum.

“Oscar,” she says at the same time as Vero, and Oscar isn’t sure how to feel about the look they share.

“Where we sitting?” he asks, and Vero shrugs.

“Wherever,” she says, “my mom’s at the one near the dance floor, though.”

“Which?”

“The one with the red handbag,” she says, and gets swept up in greeting guests again.

Claudia tugs him towards the right table, and he takes the chance to admire the way she looks in the silvery dress she’s wearing, a strapless number she picked up at the mall the month before, having dragged him with her. He remembers trying to convince her to have some fun in the dressing room while she tried it on, which she wasn’t game for, but she looks good in it.

He tells her so as they reach the table and she rolls her eyes again, but he gets a kiss anyway. He keeps his arm around her even after they sit.

“Is it food and then the waltz?” Claudia asks him, and he shrugs.

“Pretty sure.”

“Hombre,” she says, and he makes a face at her, grins when it makes her laugh. “Shouldn’t you know?”

“I didn’t plan this,” he says, rubbing her shoulder absentmindedly, “didn’t all your homegirls have a quince? Thought you’d be a pro by now.”

“Araceli’s was down in Mexico,” she says, pouting a little bit, “no one else had one.”

“Did you want to?”

She takes a minute to respond, mulling the question over. She says, fingers curling over her chin—nails painted a shimmery blue, nails grown out from the last time she chewed them down—“Not really? I never saw the point.”

He tilts her head. “Who’d you have asked? Like, pa’ los chambelanes and shit.”

She raises her eyebrows. He scoots his chair closer to hers, and she bites her lip to stop from smiling. She says, “Araceli woulda been my dama, probably.”

“You can’t have just one. You need two, at least.”

“Oh, so you an expert now, huh?”

“Yup,” he says, and kisses her face, trying not to get glitter all over himself in the process.

“Dundo,” she says, fond, “you just want me to say I’d’ve asked you to be my chambelán.”

“I dunno what you’re talking about,” he says, eyes falling away from her for a moment to watch Cesar duck under a table with some girl in bright pink, the two of them popping out the other side with sweets cradled to their chests. He looks at Claudia again. “But. Would you’ve?”

Claudia laughs at him. “Can you even dance?”

“We’ve danced before,” he says, like house parties count. He’s pretty sure they do.

“That’s not—un _vals_, Oscar, favor de Dios.”

“It can’t be that hard.” She’s still grinning at him. Shakes her head a little, even. He leans in closer to her, insists, “Would you’ve asked?”

When he kisses her again—her cheekbone, carefully because he watched her take an hour to do her makeup—she’s smiling, real soft. “Yeah,” she says, “I would have.”

Oscar’s not smug about it. It’s just nice to know. Dinner’s buffet style, and after that it’s time for the waltz. Vero’s got three of pairs dancing, her damas in periwinkle dresses that hit their knees, boys in navy pants and suspenders. Oscar wouldn’t be caught dead in an outfit like that; next to him, Cesar continues to scarf down tinga and rice, Claudia snapping pictures with her phone while his tía Alejandra dabs at her eyes with a napkin. Afterwards, while his mom is distracted by extended family, Chucho comes over with a blue bottle of reposado and another of red wine.

Claudia waves off the shot, so Oscar pours her a glass of cheap red first. He and Chucho knock their shots back, and afterwards he wanders off, catches some girl’s hand as he heads towards the exit. Oscar watches, unimpressed, as the girl giggles, trailing after him.

Next to him, Claudia swirls her glass a little. She looks real classy, even if her lipstick is a bit smudged from all the times Oscar’s kissed her today. He can’t help it. She says, considering, “I didn’t know he was dating someone.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” he says, and when he kisses her again she’s smiling.

“Oye, this is a family event,” someone says. When Oscar realizes it’s Vero, he flips her off.

“Sácate,” he says, fingers still curled in Claudia’s hair. It might not be the time or place for it, but. He likes kissing his girl. Sue him.

Claudia, flustered but pleased, says, “You guys looked great.”

“We messed up the turns,” Vero says, immediately, but shrugs afterwards, a tiny grin tugging at the corner of her mouth. “It’s fine. It’s over. I’m so hungry.”

“Didn’t you eat?” Oscar asks her.

“Nah,” she says, “I was too nervous.”

“I’ll get you a plate,” Claudia says, pulling away from Oscar. He frowns at her.

“Why?”

“Look at her dress,” she says to him, amused, “you think she’s gonna be able to reach everything?”

“Sounds like a _her_ problem—”

“Oscar,” they both say, and then Claudia’s kissing the corner of his mouth and leading Vero towards the food. Cesar tries to run across the dance floor, but he passes by close enough to Oscar that he snags him mid-stride.

“Hey,” he says, his escuincle looking like he’s been caught at the scene of the crime. Oscar doesn’t let himself wonder if he makes the same face. Asks, instead, “Whatchu running from, C?”

“Nothing,” he says, even has his eyes jump away from Oscar’s face, “we’re playing a game.”

“What game?”

“It’s like hide and seek,” he says, “but you have to catch each other.”

“So like tag?”

“Yeah,” Cesar says. “Can I go?”

“Don’t be running into people,” Oscar tells him, and lets him go. He’s off like a shot, makes Oscar laugh. He accidentally catches someone’s eye, some girl sitting at the table next to theirs. His tía’s sitting at someone else’s table now, gesticulating while she tells a story, and Oscar’s one of three people in their chairs. He thinks they’re some of Alejandra’s coworkers, a dark-haired woman and her husband. They’d exchanged hellos, nothing more.

The table next to them is full of his cousin’s friends, a bunch of freshmen in new dress clothes. They cheered for Vero as she and her court danced their vals, and two of the damas are sitting there now with at least one of the chambelanes. One of them, for some reason, stands up, and comes over to where Oscar’s sitting, in the seat that Cesar had been sitting in during dinner.

“Hi,” she says, and Oscar notices she’s got braces and too much blush on. He raises an eyebrow.

“…Hi,” he says, and glances across the room. Vero’s heading towards her mom, and Claudia trails after with two plates in hand for her.

“Is that your brother?” she asks, “He’s so cute.”

“Yeah,” he says slowly, “thanks.”

When he doesn’t say anything else the girl fidgets. Offers, after a second, “I’m Jackie.”

“Oscar,” he says. He’s not sure what’s going on here.

“Are you Vero’s cousin?” she asks. “I know she has a brother, but…”

“That’s Chucho,” he says, “I think he’s outside right now. But yeah. I’m her cousin.”

“Cool,” she says, and bites her lip afterwards, like she’s embarrassed. Oscar wills Claudia to come back faster. She says, a little rushed, “She used to talk about you, I think. Before.”

He reaches for the bottle of reposado. “Yeah? She talking shit, huh?”

“No!” Poor girl seems flustered. He’d offer her a shot, but he’d rather not deal with angry parents tonight. He’d think himself lucky that no one’s batting an eye at the bottle Chucho brought him, but among this crowd, it’s not too unexpected. “I just.” She clears her throat. “Haven’t seen you ‘round school or nothing.”

He stares at her. “I’m not in school.”

“Oh,” she says. She opens her mouth to say something else, but Oscar’s dreams are answered.

“Hey,” Claudia says. Her eyebrows are a little high up, but not raised all the way. He offers her the shot he just poured.

“Quieres?”

“No,” she says, but curls her fingers around his wrist very gently. Keeps her eyes on him, expression open, “Thank you.”

He takes her hand in his free one, knocks back the shot. She reaches towards her wine, and is taking a careful sip of it, her eyes on Jackie, when he remembers what an introduction is.

“This is Jackie,” he says, fingers laced with Claudia’s, their hands in his lap, “one of Vero’s friends, right?” He directs the question towards the girl, who nods, eyes wide.

“Que gusto,” Claudia says, voice curiously flat. She puts down her glass, reaches out to grasp Jackie’s hand. “I’m Claudia.”

“Nice to meet you,” Jackie says. She looks intrigued. “You’re at Freeridge High, right?”

“Yeah,” Claudia says. She raises an eyebrow, and even Oscar flinches when she asks, “Are you?”

“Um,” says Jackie, swallowing, “I’m a freshman.”

“Fun,” Claudia says, picking up her glass again. She peers into it, curious, like she’s seeing it for the first time. “How you like it?” She drains the glass, and looks to Oscar to refill it for her. She offers him a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.

“It’s fine,” Jackie says. She looks a little shaken, and Oscar can’t blame her. He’s not entirely sure what’s going on. “I mean, it was kind of confusing at first, ‘cause it’s so much bigger than—than other buildings, you know, but you get used to it, right?”

“Sure,” Oscar says, because he vaguely remembers that being true when he was a freshman, too. He’s just not entirely sure why Jackie—baby-faced, light pink brace bands—is still talking to them in light of the attitude Claudia’s throwing at her. They’re holding hands and she’s even got _him_ nervous.

Claudia tilts her head, eyes moving past the two of them, and then says, “I think Vero’s looking for you.”

Jackie says, eyebrows pulling together, “Oh, is she?” It sounds genuine. Her head swivels towards the other side of the room, where Vero is still seated but…talking to Adrian?

Oscar opens his mouth, but then Claudia tugs him onto the dance floor, away from the gaggle of freshman girls watching them from their table and Jackie blinking at the obvious lie. She curls her fingers over the nape of his neck and pulls him towards her, her mouth warm and open under his. He makes a noise, not expecting it, and she tightens her grip on him.

“Claudia,” he says, when they separate, “this is a family party.”

“Like you ain’t been all over me since we got here,” she says, and puts both arms around his neck. His hands are at her waist, the texture of her sequined dress odd to the touch. She looks damn good though, and when he tells her that’s why she snorts. “You’re always like this,” she says, and when _she_ bites her lip it’s coy. “I like it.”

“Yeah?” he says, and tugs her closer, their hips hitched together, “tell me more.”

“We’re at a _party_,” she says, but tilts her head up to kiss him again, sweet while they sway to whatever Pedro Infante song is playing.

“You having fun?” he says, the song switching to a Chavela cover. Claudia tucks her head under his chin, lets him hold her close. He’s having a good time.

“Yeah,” she says against his chest, “are you?”

“Yeah,” he says. Squints when he sees possibly-Adrian and Vero migrating to a corner of the room. “Hey. Is that Adrian?”

“Who?”

“Over there,” he says, but there are more people migrating to the dance floor. There aren’t more than a hundred, hundred twenty people here, of that Oscar’s sure. It’s not that big a hall, but it feels that way, and it seems like all the couples present feel inspired by the love songs.

It means catching sight of Vero and possibly-Adrian is getting harder, and he doesn’t think he likes it. Claudia can’t see them yet, not with the slow circles they’re spinning but Oscar can, and—

"Is he _kissing_—” Maybe his voice goes up too high. He tries to stop dancing, but Claudia keeps them moving. “Claudis. Tell me that isn’t Adrian.”

“Hm?” she says, pulling away from him and turning her head as they do another slow spin. Oscar thinks he might lose it. “Oh, I think it is.”

“Why did he just. And. He. Vero…_Claudia_. Podría ser incesto!”

“Don’t be gross,” Claudia says, wrinkling her nose at him. “They’re not even related.”

“They’re my _cousins_.”

“But _they’re_ not cousins,” she says. “You’ve had too much to drink.”

“I’ve had two shots.”

“A ver,” she says, and Oscar scowls, watches as Vero makes her way to the table with all her friends, looking a little _too_ pleased with herself. Claudia sighs. “C’mon, let’s sit down again.”

“Fine.” Oscar doesn’t pout. He’s adamant about that. He says, once they’re close enough, “Vero. Who was that.”

“Who was who,” she says, turning to him with her eyebrow raised. She’s holding the bottle of reposado.

“Who said you could have that,” Oscar says, and she makes a face at him. Her homegirls titter nervously behind her, the handful of boys leaning back in their chairs like it’s a good show. Oscar doesn’t mean-mug them, but it’s a close thing.

“It’s my birthday,” she says, and then tilts her head back and takes a swig. She makes uncomfortable eye contact when she swallows. “Y qué? Like you wasn’t drinking at my age.”

“Younger,” Claudia says, and tugs him back to their seats while he and Vero continue to glare at each other. “Why you mad? I was that age when I first kissed somebody. _You_ were younger.”

“Who were you kissing at fifteen?” he says. Definitely doesn’t demand.

“You’re annoying,” she tells him, clearly unimpressed, and offers him some wine. “Tené. Maybe this’ll make you relax.”

He’s scowling when he takes the glass, and scowling after he tries it. “Claudis. This tastes like shit.”

“Maybe they have rosé,” she says, drily, but can’t keep herself from laughing at his expression. “Why are you so mad!”

“I’m not,” he says, and tries his best to make his eyebrows relax. It doesn’t work. He says, because he doesn’t want to be wrong, “You the one giving attitude to a freshman.” It makes her straighten up, toss her long hair over her shoulder. Oscar’s only a little mesmerized.

“I defend my territory,” she says, haughty, and he stares at her.

“Your _territory_?”

“Yes,” she says. “Now kiss me.”

“You’re bossy,” he says, “and I’m right,” and kisses her before she can argue with him. He’s willing to call it a tie, today.


	11. si tú me olvidas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from the neruda poem of the same name :(

Oscar doesn’t notice at first. He wants to be defensive about it, later; it’s not like his mom has ever been good about being around. Has never been, not in Oscar’s memory—which is a lie he’ll tell himself until he’s blue in the face, the years spent down in TJ a dream he’d rather forget.

None of that matters. Penelope hops from job to job, stays clean for weeks or months sometimes and comes crashing down anyway. Throws shit, sometimes, when she’s mad enough for it, her hands never as scary as his father’s even if it’s clear she wants them to be. She’s not strong enough for it to hurt anymore but it’s the principle of the thing, he thinks.

November doesn’t really mean anything different from what previous months held. He’ll be eighteen soon but he’s on probation for another little while anyway, and it’s not like they ever celebrated holidays besides Christmas. The house isn’t any louder or quieter, that month. Just another cage. Just another place to lick his wounds.

None of it’s a real excuse, though. Not really. He realizes it a little before his birthday, comes home with his neck raw from his latest tattoo—a Santos cross, freshly done. He let Chucho convince him to give him a California-shaped stick-and-poke a few weeks ago; he’s surprised it came out as good as it did. Cesar’s watching TV in the living room when he gets home.

“I know you ain’t watching that without your homework done,” he says as he walks back towards the bathroom.

Cesar starts whining. “But it’s _Friday_.”

“Y qué?” Oscar calls back, “turn that off, homie.”

The ink is dark and glossy in the mirror, but that might be the Aquaphor smeared over his skin. A cross with SANTOS crawling down it. Oscar feels a pang of regret. Bad enough that the teardrop keeps targets on his back. It only seemed fitting that he let the realities of this life brand him further. It’s not like he’s really losing out on anything either way; what’s been taken from him has been taken already. He doesn’t think it matters.

He knows Penelope’s going to lose her shit though, and it’s this thought that makes him hesitate. He tries to remember when they last spoke, what she did or didn’t say to him. Taking care of Cesar has been his responsibility for so long that it doesn’t matter whether she’s there or not, but as he stares at himself in the mirror he realizes, slowly, that it’s been at least two weeks since he’s seen her.

Things slow down. He moves like he’s underwater, the doorknob to his mother’s room chilling under his touch. When he opens the door the air smells stale. He swallows, mouth full of sand while his eyes sweep over the too-neat bed, covers folded and untouched for who knows how long. No trash, needles or spoons or blunt wrappers. He opens the closet and it’s half empty. TV unplugged, shelves dusty as ever.

It doesn’t have to mean anything. Oscar’s not stupid, though. He knows exactly what it means.

And he doesn’t mean to scare Cesar, but he knows he does when he puts his fist through the back screen door. Has to, with the way it makes him shout, “_Fuck!_”

He doesn’t remember walking out of the room. The pain is grounding for a split second. A reminder that he’s still here, still responsible for Cesar, still in this stupid fucking house that first his father and then his mother trapped them in.

“Oscar?”

“I’m fine,” he says, like that answers anything. Cesar says his name again, and Oscar shakes his head, goes to his escuincle like he always does. “It’s okay.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“Yeah,” he says. His hand throbs. “You ready for bed?”

“You’re—”

“It’s okay,” he says again. “Go brush your teeth.”

Cesar looks at him for a long moment. Oscar doesn’t want to know what he’s thinking, but he wants to know what their mother was. It’s been clear for years that she can’t stand Oscar, though whether it’s for being too much like his father or not enough he’s not sure. Cesar though…there was affection there, still. On days where she wasn’t nearly catatonic, she would let him curl next to her on the couch, her thin hand combing through his hair. She didn’t how to take care of Cesar, not really, but she could barely take care of herself. Oscar’s not sure if he should hold it against her.

But Oscar’s whole heart is looking right back at him. He doesn’t know how Penelope could have walked away from this.

While Cesar’s in the bathroom, Oscar moves to the kitchen. Runs his hand under the tap, water cold and stinging against his skin. The paper towel he presses to the scrapes, after, feels painfully rough. He sits at the table, cradles his hand to his chest and takes a shuddering breath. Tries to make sense of this, tries to convince himself that he’s overreacting, or is maybe just plain _wrong_. He has to be. She wouldn’t have—

But she would. She did, once, only that time she took Oscar with her. The heavy feeling that’s settled in his lungs is proof enough, maybe. Her empty room more than that. He digs his phone out of his pocket with his good hand, types out a quick message without really thinking about it. Gets Cesar to bed, doesn’t bother wrapping his hand up—he could figure it out one-handed, sure, but there’s no real point to it. He’s debating on lighting up a spliff when his phone rings.

It’s Claudia. She sounds worried.

“Whatchu mean she’s _gone_? Your mom?”

“Yeah,” Oscar says. He’s at the kitchen table again. Time slows and speeds up all on its own.

“Oscar,” she says, “how do you know that?”

“She took her shit,” he says. Mouth like cotton. He can feel every inhale, hears each breath whistle past his teeth. “I ain’t never seen her room clean like this, sabes.”

He listens to silence for a minute. Finally, she says, “I’m on my way.”

“What?”

“Ten minutes,” she says.

“Claudia—”

“See you soon,” she says, and hangs up. Oscar stares at his phone, and then gets up to unlock the front door for her.

“Who were you with?” he asks when she walks in, watches how she makes a beeline for him as if he’s not quite in control of his body.

“Leti,” she says, hands cupping his face. She raises her eyebrows when she sees the tattoo, mouth quirking up for a split-second before twisting into a frown when Oscar tries to curl his fingers around her wrist with his bad hand and hisses in pain. “What happened?”

He shrugs. Feels embarrassed, now, to think of the broken screen door and his swollen knuckles. “Nothing.”

“Did you get in a fight?” She looks so worried. He hates it.

“No,” he says, and then he corrects himself. “Yeah. Back door’s broken.”

“_What_?”

“I’m _fine_,” he says, irritated now. “I didn’t ask you to come over.”

She gives him the filthiest look he’s seen on her in ages; makes his stomach drop, thinking of that time she climbed out of the car for saying shit that was out of pocket. He tugs her closer, willing her not to leave, too. Says her name, pleading, and she exhales hard. She shakes her head, pulls him close and cradles him against her best as she can, still sitting at the table and Claudia in the space between his legs.

When she lets go of him she says, “Lemme see your hands, querido.” The sight makes her hiss. “When’d you do this?”

“Half hour ago,” he says. “Maybe an hour. Dunno.”

She rubs her thumb against his wrist. Bites her lip, unthinking, before glancing at his face again. She reaches out with one hand, strokes along his cheekbone, more gentle than she’s ever been, he thinks.

“Mi vida,” she says, voice even, careful, like if she says the wrong thing he’ll shatter. Oscar feels that way anyway; doesn’t think there’s anything that could fix it. She says, “You wanna talk about it?”

“No,” he says. She looks like she wants to argue.

But she doesn’t, drags him to the bathroom instead. He watches as she digs out a bottle of rubbing alcohol, a pinch of mota making it murky. She makes him sit and he listens, still feeling out-of-body as she cleans his hand for real. He doesn’t even flinch at the sting.

When she finishes she says, “I don’t think I can wrap it,” and lifts his hand to her mouth instead. Presses a kiss to the back of his fingers, makes him flood with affection for her. For being here tonight, and every other night, the year and two months they’ve been dating. He takes her face in both hands and kisses her instead of saying so, likes how she puts her arms around him. He stands, finally, and when he hugs her, she’s clinging back just as tight.

His breath comes just a little bit easier like this. He wonders if she knows that.

“Let’s go to bed,” she says, looking up at him. Still concerned, still utterly focused on him. He swallows.

“Yeah,” he says, not letting go of her, afraid of what might happen if he does, her hands warm through his t-shirt, “alright.”


	12. siempre

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if u follow me on tumblr u probably saw part of this already but :~)
> 
> this is the end! thx for reading :)

“Okay, what else is on the list?”

“Maizena,” Oscar tells her, and she nods, looks far too serious to just be grocery shopping with him. Then again, it’s Saturday morning, and half the neighborhood moms are here doing their weekly shopping, too. He and Claudia are just two teenagers trying to buy fresh fruit and not lose their eight-year-old.

“Can we buy pan dulce when we’re done?” said child says, and Oscar tries not to laugh.

“Ask Oscar,” Claudia says, distracted, Cesar’s hand in hers while she scans the shelves for corn starch. She tried clowning him for the list he had, the first time they went grocery shopping together, but then he told her that’s what he uses in the atol she likes so much and she got quiet. It didn’t stop her from making eyes at him until he made some for them, though, so he’s not sure who came out on top that time.

Cesar must have gotten that puppy-dog trick from Claudia, now that Oscar thinks about it, because it’s almost the exact same expression as hers when he turns to look at him. Oscar’s going to say yes, there’s no question about it, but he’d like to at least pretend that he’s the one in charge here.

“Please?” Cesar says, and Oscar remembers when the kid used to pronounce it _peas_. Christ. He’s growing up too fast, and he doesn’t know how to feel about it.

He says, “Yeah, but you gotta eat vegetables at lunch before you can have one,” and it makes Cesar pout, just a little, before brightening up.

“Can we get the cuernitos?”

“Sure.”

“Gotcha,” Claudia says to herself, having finally found the cornstarch. She grins, triumphant, when she turns to Oscar and he wants to kiss her, so he does.

Cesar says, “_Ew_,” and it makes Claudia laugh. She tugs him close to her and squeezes him tight.

“Don’t be mean,” she tells him.

Cesar doesn’t even squirm in her grip, just hugs her back. “What kind of pan are you gonna get?”

“Dunno,” she says, and lets go of him, “maybe just a concha. Whatchu think, Oscar?”

He shrugs, then smirks. Claudia narrows her eyes at him like she knows he’s trying to rile her up. “Maybe a novia.”

“I like those,” Cesar says, losing interest in the conversation when he catches sight of Ruby Martinez and his family. “Can I go say hi?”

“Come right back,” Oscar tells him, and grins at Claudia. Her arms are crossed but she’s smiling, just a little. “What?”

“Querés una novia, huh?” she says, and he kisses her again, doesn’t care that they’re at the grocery store and that Cesar’s probably going to forget to come back.

“Yeah,” he says, “the one I got, she’s pretty cool, sabes?”

“You’re annoying,” she says, but she’s smiling at him so sweet he wishes they could spend the rest of their lives just looking at each other like this, nothing but good times. “C’mon, what’s next?”

“Tomatoes,” he says, lets Claudia lead the way.

Later, Oscar will thing that this was the calm before the storm. The months after his mother leaves feel the hardest of his life, but he’s eighteen years old; of course he didn’t know any better.

But sometimes, there are quiet moments. There are good moments. Taking Cesar to school, making Claudia laugh at one of his jokes, breakfast with his tía Alejandra on Sundays, even if Vero gives him the stink-eye and Chucho pretends not to be hungover.

The morning is one of those moments; that night is another, Claudia’s fingers curled in the collar of his shirt, her mouth soft and urgent.

“Oscar,” Claudia mutters, not pulling away, “Cesar’s here.”

“He’s asleep,” Oscar says against her jaw, kisses her neck next and feeling pleased when it makes her shiver. “I just wanna kiss you.”

“Hm,” she says, “what happened to your rule, huh?”

“Qué te dije?” he says, pulling back to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear, “I’m not tryna start anything.”

She raises both eyebrows at him, then looks pointedly down at where his hand is gripping her thigh.

He clears his throat. “These jeans look nice on you.”

“Uh-huh,” she says, clearly trying not to laugh, and he swoops in to kiss her again, chaste this time, even if Claudia’s smiling now and all he gets is teeth.

“Nena,” he says, not whining, and she takes mercy on him, kisses him for real. “What’re we doing tomorrow?”

“You tell me,” she says, keeping her arms around his neck. Cesar’s passed out on the floor in front of them, refused to sit on the couch with them because he was convinced they’d try to kiss with him in the middle. Oscar could’ve told the escuincle all they’d do is hold hands, but as it was, he likes playing with her hair while they watch TV or a movie. Got to cop a feel anyway, once Cesar knocked out in the middle of one of the Ice Age movies—not the first one. That one makes them all sad.

Oscar had thrown a blanket over the kid and put the moves on Claudia, who he’s lucky wants him as bad as he wants her—even if they can’t do anything about it with Cesar home, let alone two feet away from them. It’s a little harder, lately, for them to get alone time, what with Oscar being the only one who takes care of Cesar now, but. His tía helps out sometimes, and Sad Eyes’ girl will offer to babysit here and there. Between them and the Martinez family, despite Geny hating Oscar’s guts, they do okay. He doesn’t have to worry too much about him being alone in the afternoons, at least.

“You work?”

“Nah,” she says, “spring break. Father Carlos gave me the week’s shifts instead.”

“Dope,” he says. “You gonna stay here, then?”

“Hombre,” she says, clearly trying not to grin, “my folks ain’t gonna let that slide like nothing.”

“Ask for forgiveness,” he says, rubbing her eyebrow before pressing a kiss there and then against her jaw, distracted by her perfume like usual, “instead of permission.”

“That how you do it?”

“Lo sabes, mamita,” he says, kissing her again, her mouth opening under his like she’s already forgotten what she was complaining about. She probably has.

She pulls away, eventually, says, “You gonna let the baby sleep on the floor o qué?”

“Whatchu tryna say?”

“Ya sabés,” she says, raising her eyebrows again, and he grins. Her gaze softens, and she reaches out, touches his face real gentle. Bites her lip like she wants to say something, but then Cesar snuffles and her hand drops away.

“I’ll grab him,” Oscar says, but she climbs off the couch first anyway, kneels on the floor next to Cesar like the kid’s hers, too. Oscar straightens up, tilts his head as he watches them.

“It’s fine,” she says to him, reaching out to rest her hand on Cesar’s back. She says, voice real soft, “Cesar? Despertáte, mi vida.”

“No,” Cesar says, half-asleep, and Oscar snorts. Claudia glances at him, grinning even as she rolls her eyes and tries again.

“C’mon, baby,” she coaxes, “don’t you wanna go to bed? You’re on the floor.”

“Mhm,” Cesar says, and reaches out to her.

“Ay, Cesar,” Oscar says, voice still pitched low even if he doesn’t want the kid to be completely asleep anymore, “you’re too big for that.”

“No he’s not,” Claudia says, even if Oscar can tell it’s taking her a bit of effort to tug him into her arms. Oscar stands up, hands hovering around them like Claudia would ever let herself drop him. It’s just instinctual. “He’s fine. He’s little still.”

“No ‘m not,” Cesar says, even as he wraps his little limbs around her, face tucked into her neck.

“You’re right,” she says, grinning at Oscar, “you’re big now, I know.”

“Mhm,” he says, and yawns. “I’m sleepy.”

“I know, baby,” she soothes, “bedtime now?”

“Please.”

Oscar leads them back to Cesar’s room, opens the door for them. Doesn’t bother with the light, just helps Claudia get Cesar settled under the sheets. He’s in little kid-sweats, so Oscar doesn’t bother insisting on getting him into pajamas. The bedsheets need to get washed this weekend, anyway.

“You good, C?” he asks, and Cesar makes an affirmative-sounding noise.

“Okay,” Claudia says, smoothing his hair back, “goodnight, mi amor.”

“Night, mami,” he says, voice sleep-heavy. Oscar can’t see Claudia’s face, but by the light of the hallway he can see how her back straightens.

Oscar remembers how _scared_ she looked, the first time Cesar called her that, not even seventeen and with some escuincle calling her _mami_. Shit, he’s still surprised she didn’t run out the door and try to leave town. Cesar doesn’t do it often, usually in this half-awake state in the mornings or at night, once memorably while they were at the park with Geny Martinez looking almost as mortified as Claudia.

Oscar thinks it’s sweet. Today, she touches Cesar’s shoulder before moving out the way so Oscar can say goodnight, too. Waits for him out in the hall.

“You good?” he asks, her expression real serious like it hasn’t been all night.

She bites the inside of her cheek. Steps close before wrapping her arms around him, Cesar’s door closed and the hallway light the only one on in the house. She says, like there’s something else on her mind, “Yeah. Ya listo pa’ dormir?”

“Yeah,” he says, rubbing his thumb against her cheekbone, “I’m good.”

“Good,” she says, still watching him, and for lack of anything else to do, he tucks her head under his chin and just holds her. Wonders what it means, that the three of them are a family. Feels good, knowing they’re going to last.


End file.
